T 



THE INSPIRATION 



BIBLE: 



FIVE LECTURES, 



DELIVERED IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 



CHR: WORDSWORTH, D.D 

CANON OE WESTMINSTER, 
VICAR OF STANFORD IN THE VALE. 



LONDON: 
IVINGTONS, WATERLOO PLACE. 






" In the name of Holy Scripture we do understand those Canonical 
Books of the Old and New Testament, of whose authority was never 
any doubt in the Church." 

"All the Books of the New Testament, as they are commonly 
received, we do receive and account them Canonical." 

From the Sixth of the Thirty -nine Articles of the 
United Church of England and Ireland. 



EXCHANGE 

Ni v. of WESTERN ONT. LiBRARY 
SEPT 34. 1938 



) 



The following Lectures, on the Inspiration of 
the Bible, were delivered at Westminster in the 
months of February and March of the present 
year. They are entitled Lectures rather than Ser- 
mons, as being more of a theological and historical 
than of an expository or hortatory character : and in 
preparing them the Author has endeavoured to dis- 
charge, in some degree, the duty of an office assigned 
to him by the kindness of the Dean and Chapter of 
Westminster; that of Theological Lecturer in the 
Abbey Church. 

If health and strength are given him, he pur- 
poses, with the divine help, to deliver a similar 
course of Lectures, " On the Interpretation of the 
Bible." 

Cloisters, Westminster, 
Monday before Easter, 1861. 



LECTURE I. 1 



Peter iii. ] 5. 



Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a 
reason of the hope that is in you. 

I. 1. The hope that is in us as Christians rests upon 
the belief that the Bible is the Word of God. The 
works of the natural Creation declare His Power, 
but they do not reveal to us the Mysteries of Faith. 
Human Reason could neyer have assured us that 
sinners may obtain pardon through God's mercy in 
a Redeemer, and that we may acquire spiritual 
grace, enabling us to do His Will. We could never 
have discovered by our intellectual faculties, that 
there is a Judgment to come, and a Resurrection of 
the Body, and joys eternal in heaven for those who 
believe and obey Him. 

These are supernatural truths, and they are re- 
vealed to us in the Bible, and in the Bible alone. 
And by faith in these truths we are excited to do our 
duty to God, our neighbour, and ourselves : we are 

1 Preached in Westminster Abbey, at the Evening Service, Feb. 24. 

B 



2 Attacks upon the Bible 

encouraged to suffer patiently, and to live soberly, 
righteously, and godly in this present world, looking for 
that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great 
God and our Saviour Jesus Christ 2 . Therefore the 
Apostle St. Paul says, Whatsoever things were written 
aforetime ivere written for our learning, that we through 
patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have 
hope '\ 

2. Our spiritual Enemy knows, that belief in the 
Inspiration of the Bible is the foundation of Christian 
Faith and of Christian Yirtue ; and that, if " the belief 
in the authority of Scripture is shaken, then Chris- 
tian Faith will falter, and if Christian Faith falters, 
then Christian Charity will fail 4 ," and that the fabric 
of human society will be dissolved, and that men and 
nations will become -victims of his power. 

The Evil One has therefore been indefatigable in 
his attempts to shake this foundation. In ancient 
days he enlisted Kings against the Bible. He in- 
cited Antiochus Epiphanes to take up arms against 
the Old Testament. He raised up the Emperor Dio- 
cletian against the "New. He engaged sceptical 
philosophers, such as Celsus, Porphyry, and Julian, 
in an intellectual campaign against the Word of 
God. He beguiled some, who called themselves 

2 Titus ii. 12, 13. 3 Rom. xv. 4. 

4 S. Augustine de Doct. Christiana i. 41, " Titubabit fides, si divi- 
narum Scripturarum vacillat auctoritas ; porro, Fide titubante, Charitas 
et etiam ipsa languescit." And so Hooker (III. viii. 13) says, " The 
main principle whereupon our belief of all things therein contained 
dependeth, is that the Scriptures are the Oracles of God." 



in Ancient Times. 3 

Christians, to impugn the Bible. The Marcionites 
and the Manichseans alleged that the Old Testament 
is contrary to the JSTew. Other heretical Teachers 
rejected portions of both Testaments, others dis- 
torted their meaning by novel interpretations, and 
substituted their own imaginations in the place of 
the Word of God. 

The Church of God, with the Bible in her hands, 
regards the pa&t with thankfulness, and looks for- 
ward to the future with hope. She knows that the 
Holy Scriptures have already passed through a 
severe ordeal; and she is sure, that their Divine 
Author, Who has never failed to protect them, will 
defend them unto the end. She is persuaded, that 
all attacks upon the Bible will issue in its victory, 
and will manifest more clearly that it is the Word of 
God. 

As the end of the world approaches, the Bible 
may expect new conflicts, and may hope for new 
conquests. Its own prophecies will be fulfilled. The 
Enemy of Holy Scripture will rage more fiercely, in 
proportion as his doom is nearer. He will make 
more desperate assaults upon Holy Writ, knowing 
that he hath but a short time 5 . 

3. The present age bears witness to this truth. 
England has hitherto stood high among the Nations 
of Europe and the World, during some centuries, 
for her reverent esteem of the Bible. But now a 

5 Rev. xii. 12. 
B 2 



4 Attacks on the Bible in the present Age. 

change seems to be taking place. Persons eminent 
among us for high position in our Schools of Learn- 
ing, and exercising great influence, by their repu- 
tation for intellectual gifts, have not hesitated to 
avow an opinion, that certain portions of Holy Scrip- 
ture were not written by those whose names they 
bear, and that sundry parts of it are blemished by 
error, and that the Bible is not to be regarded as 
distinct from other Volumes, but is to be treated as a 
common book 6 . 

4. Such affirmations as these require us to examine 
the grounds of our own belief in the Inspiration of 
Holy Writ. And since it is our duty to promote the 
temporal and eternal happiness of others, as well as 
our own, we ought to be prepared to give an answer 
to every one who asks as a reason of the hope that is 
in us. 

This then is the question to which our attention is 
invited ; 

By what reasons are we persuaded, and by what 
arguments would we seek to convince others, that 
the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the 
Bible, is the written Word of God ? 

May the Holy Spirit enlighten the eyes of our 
understandings, and enable us to speak the truth ; 
and may He take the veil from the hearts of those 
who are in error, and bring them and us to one mind 
in the reverent belief, and fervent love, of God's most 
holy Word ! 

6 " Essays and Reviews," pp. 377. 404, Lond. 6th edit. 1861. 



"Prefatory remarks on Inspiration. 5 

II. In dealing with this subject, let us first clearly 
understand, what we mean by the proposition, that 
the Scriptures are inspired by God. 

1. We do not intend thereby to affirm, that the 
Writers of Holy Scripture were constrained to write, 
without any volition or consciousness on their part. 
David singing the Psalms was not like the Harp in 
David's hand. He was a free agent, it was a mecha- 
nical instrument. The Holy Ghost inspired the writers 
of Holy Scripture. Holy men, says St. Peter 7 , spake, 
being moved or borne along 8 by the Holy Ghost. All 
Scripture is given by inspiration of God, says St. Paul 9 . 
It is animated by His Divine breath \ 

But while He inspired the Writers of Scripture, 
Almighty God did not impair their moral and intel- 
lectual faculties, nor destroy their personal iden- 
tity. 

Inspiration may be called a spiritual Transfigura- 
tion. At the Transfiguration of Christ on the Holy 
Mount, as described in the Gospels, Moses and Elias 
appeared in glory 2 . Moses the Giver of the Law was 
there, and Elias the greatest of the Prophets. They 
were transfigured. But Moses retained his identitj 1 - ; 
so did Elias. Moses was still Moses, and Elias was 

7 2 Pet. i. 21. 

8 (pepSfizuoi, carried along like a ship by the wind, or like a vessel 
on a stream. In this text the Vatican Manuscript has i\d\r]crav curb 
®eov avOpcowoL, i. e. men spake from God : and this reading gives 
greater force to the assertion of their Divine Inspiration. 

9 2 Tim. iii. 16. l QeSirvevffTos. 
2 Matt. xvii. 2, 3. Luke ix. 30, 31. Cf. 2 Pet. i. 18. 

B 3 



6 Divine and Human Elements in the Bible. 

still Elias. Each, was recognized by the Disciples, 
Peter, James, and John. 

So it is with the writers of Holy Scripture. Moses, 
when inspired, was raised above Moses uninspired. 
St. Peter, St. John, and St. Paul, when writing Holy 
Scripture, are lifted above themselves by the power 
of the Holy Ghost. They are raised above their own 
level, and that of this lower world, and are placed as 
it were on a "holy mount.' ' They, from whose 
hands we have received the Law, the Prophecies, and 
the Gospels, are joined together with Christ on a 
Mountain of Transfiguration ; they are illumined by 
His glorious light, and the cloud of His presence 
overshadows them ; each of them retains his own 
personality, each shines in his own sphere ; they are 
spiritualized and glorified ; they are transfigured. 

In the written Word of God there is a holy union 
of human with divine, and we are not able to draw 
the line, where what is human ends, and what is 
divine begins. 

This union of human with divine in the Written 
Word, bears some resemblance to the greatest Mys- 
tery of our faith, the union of Man with God in the 
Incarnate "Word. The Inspiration of Scripture 
may be compared to the Incarnation of Christ. 
Jesus Christ is Emmanuel, God ivith us 3 , God mani- 
fest in the flesh 4 . The two natures of God and 
Man are joined together in His one Person. But 

3 Matt. i. 23. * 1 Tim. iii. 16. 



Inspiration and tlie Incarnation. 7 

who would attempt to define the limits, where God's 
nature ends, and where Man's nature begins, in the 
Person of Christ ? The union of God and Man in 
the Incarnate Word is a Mystery. So is the union 
of the Divine element with the human in the Written 
Word. It is a Mystery. In both cases the Mystery 
bafHes all our powers of analysis. In both cases the 
Mystery, like the mid- day sun in the heavens, dazzles 
the eye with its brightness ; we cannot gaze upon it. 
But, in both cases also, the Mystery, like the sun in 
the heavens, enables us to see. All would be dark in 
the moral and spiritual world, without the light of 
the Incarnate "Word, and of the Written Word. 
And in both cases it is the union of Divinity with 
Humanity, which is the cause of spiritual light to the 
World 5 . 

Perhaps we may be allowed to illustrate this part 
of the subject by another comparison. Scripture is 
God's Word written. The things written are from 
God, and the Writing of them is from Him; all 
Scripture is given by Inspiration of God. The fresh 
and living Water of heavenly Truth issues from one 
Source, and that Source is Divine. But the water 
flows in various streams. The Fountain is Divine, the 
element is heavenly, but the channels are earthly, and 
the channels do not change the water, but they modify 
its direction and its course. The heavenly water acts 
upon the earthly banks of the streams ; and the banks 

5 Some sentences are repeated here from the Preface to the Author's 
Edition of the Greek Testament, p. xviii. Second Edition, 1859. 

B 4 



8 The Word of God 

act upon the water; they act and react upon each 
other with a simultaneous and concurrent operation. 
Sometimes the Divine element of Inspired Truth 
rushes vehemently in torrents and in cataracts, in 
the impetuous fervour of St. Paul. Sometimes it 
diffuses itself, and sleeps in calm and deep lakes, in 
the love and gentleness of St. John. The Element 
is one and the same, and Divine ; the channels are 
different, and human ; the power of the one destroys 
not the liberty of the other ; Divine Grace does not 
annul the human intellect and will, though it is sug- 
gestive, preventive, suppletory, auxiliary to it, but 
the Divine Spirit, and the human Intellect and Will, 
concur and act together in loving harmony and 

joy- 

2. We affirm, then, that there is a human element 
in Holy Scripture ; but we assert also that this 
human element is refined, sublimed, spiritualized, 
and purified from all taint of human error, in the 
Word of God. We are not of those who say, that 
though Holy Scripture is inspired, it is marred and 
blemished by imperfections and inaccuracies. We 
cannot agree with some who assert, that the holy 
Evangelist St. Matthew errs in his exposition of the 
Prophecies recited in his first and second chapters, 
We cannot allow that St. Matthew and St. Luke 
are at variance with one another in their nar- 
ratives of the incidents of our Lord's infancy; we 
cannot concede that St. Mark errs when he says 
that David ate the shewbread in the days of Abiathar 



is not olemished with human errors. 9 

the High Priest 6 . We cannot admit, that St. Luke 
errs, in saying that the Taxing at the Nativity took 
place in the time of Cyrenius 7 . We cannot grant, 
that St. John errs, when he says that the Chief 
Priests had not eaten the Passover on the day of the 
Crucifixion 8 . We cannot concede that either he 9 or 
St. Mark * errs in their record of the hour on which 
the Crucifixion took place. We know well, that all 
these allegations may be, and have been refuted. 
Having carefully examined the narratives of the four 
Evangelists, we deliberately affirm our conviction, 
that while there are sundry varieties serving to com- 
plete the Evangelical history, there is no contradic- 
tion in it 2 . 

Again ; we cannot concur with those who say that 
there are historical mistakes in St. Stephen's speech 
to the Hebrew Sanhedrim 3 , and that therefore the 
Author of the Acts of the Apostles errs when he says 
that St. Stephen was full of the Holy Ghost, and that 
no one could resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he 
spake 4 . We cannot agree with those who affirm that 
St. Paul erred when writing to the Thessalonians, 
and speaking to them by the Word of the Lord 5 , and 
" entertained and expressed a belief which the event 

6 Mark ii. 26. 7 Luke ii. 2. 

8 John xviii. 18. 9 John xix. 14. 

1 Mark xv. 25. 

3 Cp. Euseb. Demonst. Evang. iii. 5, and S. Augustine's treatise De 
Consensu Evangelistarum. 

3 Acts vii. 4 Acts vi. 8—10. 

6 1 Thess. iv. 15. See " Essays and Reviews," p. 346. 

B 5 



10 Inferences derived by Sceptics from the 

did not justify," namely, that the Day of the Lord 
would come while he himself was still alive. 

We are sure that these assertions, however confi- 
dently repeated, can never be proved. 

We know that the Doctrines of Scripture are based 
on the History, and if the History is false, the Doc- 
trines cannot stand. We know that the Bible is for 
all ; it is for the simplest peasant as well as for the 
wisest philosopher, it is able to make all men wise 
unto salvation 6 . 

Not only are the Writers of Holy Scripture moved 
by the Holy Ghost 7 , but the writing itself, every part 
of the whole writing, is described by St. Paul as filled 
with the breath of Grod 8 . The Book is inspired, and 
therefore the Scriptures are called living oracles 9 , and 
are represented as speaking *, and as endued with 
foreknowledge 2 . The Spirit of God animates them. 
They are saturated and bathed with the Divine 
Light. They become Light. Thy word is a Lamp 
unto my feet , and a Light unto my paths 3 . 

We cannot therefore admit that the Bible is 
blemished with errors, and that it is left for the 
reader " to separate by his own skill " what is 
erroneous in it from what is true. We know that 
the unbeliever may justly challenge those who make 



G 2 Tim. iii. 15. 7 2 Pet. i. 21. 

8 ivacra ypa<pr) 6s6itu€V(Ttos, 2 Tim. iii. 16. 

9 Acts vii. 38. 

1 Mark xv. 28. John xix. 37- Rom. iv. 3 ; ix. 17 ; xi. 2. Gal. iv. 30. 

2 Gal. iii. 8. 3 Ps. cxix. 105. 



admission that there are Errors in the Word of God. 11 

such an admission as that ; and that he may fairly 
encounter them with the following language 4 , "A 
book cannot be said to be inspired, or to carry with 
it the authority of being God's Word, if only portions 
come from Him, and there exists no plain and in- 
fallible sign to indicate which those portions are ; and 
if the same "Writer may give us in one verse of the 
Bible a revelation from the Most High, and in the 
next verse a blunder of his own. How can we be 
certain, that the very texts, upon which we rest our 
doctrines and our hopes, are not the uninspired por- 
tion ? What can be the meaning or nature of an In- 
spiration to teach Truth, which does not guarantee 
its recipient from teaching error?" 

3. In answer to such questions as these, we affirm 
that the Bible is the Word of Grod, and that it is not 
marred by human infirmities. We do not imagine 
with some that the Bible is like a Threshing-floor, 
on which wheat and chaff lie mingled together, and 



4 These paragraphs are transcribed from a Volume recently pub- 
lished by a sceptical writer, who reasons logically on the theory of those 
who say that the Bible is inspired and yet is blemished with error.: and 
exposes the inconsistency of that theory. This sceptical writer, com- 
menting on the admission made by an English Theologian that St. Paul 
" entertained a belief which the event did not justify " when he was 
speaking of the end of the world (1 Thess. iv. 13 — 18), observes very truly 
that " it is particularly worthy of remark, and seems to have been un- 
accountably overlooked " by that English Theologian " throughout 
his argument, that in the assertion of this so-called ' erroneous belief, 
St. Paul expressly declares himself to be speaking by the Word of the 
Lord.' " For an elucidation of that text, and of those specified above in 
pp. 8, 9, the Author of these Lectures may perhaps be allowed to 
refer to the notes upon them in his edition of the Greek Testament. 

B 6 



1 2 Language of S. Augustine on this subject. 

that it is left for the reader to winnow and sift the 
wheat from the chaff by the fan and sieve of his own 
mind. We do not suppose that the Bible is like a 
rude mass, having threads and spangles of precious 
metal, intertwisted and encrusted in a mineral bed, 
and that it is left for the reader to smelt the ore from 
the dross. But we believe the Bible to be pure gold. 
Every word of God is pure 5 . We adopt the language 
of one of the wisest ancient divines 6 , — " Such is the 
reverence I have learnt to pay to the Books of Holy 
Scripture, and to those Books alone, that I most 
firmly believe that none of those Writers has ever 
fallen into any error in writing ; and if I find any 
thing in Scripture which seems to me at variance 
with the truth, I conclude that either my copy of 
the Bible is in fault, or that the translator has missed 
the sense, or that I have not rightly understood it 7 ." 
4. They who acknowledge that the Scriptures are 
inspired by the Holy Ghost, and yet assert that they 

5 Prov. xxx. 5. Cp. Ps. xii. 6 ; cxix. 140. 

6 S. Augustine, Epist. ad Hieron. 82 ; cp. Irenaus iii. 1 , and iii. 5, 
where he speaks of the Apostles as having perfect knowledge (perfec- 
tam agnitionem) and placed beyond the reach of all falsehood ' extra 
omne mendacium,' and so Origen (in Matth. torn. xvi. c. 12), " I be- 
lieve that not a jot or tittle of the Gospels is without divine instruction ; 
and that the Gospels were written with the co-operation of the Holy 
Ghost, and that they who wrote them never fell into an error." See 
also his Comment on John vi. c. 18 ; and Homil. in Num. xxvii. 1, 
where he says that in Holy Scripture there is 'nihil otiosum,' and 
(Homil. in Jerem. xxxix.), "there is nothing in Scripture which does 
not do its own proper work, if men know how to use it." 

7 See also Hookers judgment on this subject in his Eccles. Polity, 
II. viii. 6. 



Holy Scripture not blemished with Error. 13 

are blemished by error, may be desired to consider, 
that if the Holy Gfhost, who inspired the Scriptures, 
had not intended to preserve their writers from error, 
He would not have employed such persons as He did 
in writing the Scriptures. He would not have chosen 
unlearned and ignorant men 8 , but the wise of this 
world. He would not have chosen a Galilaean 
fisherman, a hundred years old, for such St. John 
was, to write the record of the sublimest discourses 
of Jesus Christ. And if that Galilaaan fisherman, 
and his brother Evangelists, being such as they were, 
had not been preserved from error by the Holy 
Ghost, they must have fallen into countless palpable 
errors, and manifest contradictions. But the Holy 
Spirit made choice of such feeble instruments with a 
wise design, in order that by the weakness of the 
instruments used, and by the perfection of the work 
done by their means, it might be seen and acknow- 
ledged by all, that the excellency of the Gospel 
written by their hands is not of man, but of God 9 . 

5. But while we thus aflirm, that the genuine text 
of the Bible is free from error, we do not mean to 
assert that the persons employed to write the Bible, 
as Moses, the Prophets, and Apostles, were not 
liable to err. As Writers they were infallibly guided 
in writing, and were preserved from error by the 
Spirit of Truth, who inspired them, but they were 

8 Acts iv. 13. 

9 2 Cor. iv. 7. Cp. Euseb. Demonst. Evang. iii. 5. Hist. Eccl. 
iii. 24. 



14 As men, the turiters of Holy Scripture were fallible 
in practice ; 

fallible in practice as men. They themselves confess 
this. We are men of like passions with you 1 . In 
many things toe offend all 2 . The unerring word of 
Scripture records errors of the men, by whose instru- 
mentality Scripture was written. Moses spake un- 
advisedly with his lips 3 . David the Psalmist laments 
the sins of David the King \ St. Luke in the Acts 
relates that St. Mark faltered for a season, and that 
St. Paul and St. Barnabas strove together concerning 
him 5 . St. Paul testifies that St. Peter walked not 
uprightly*. The unerring language of the Holy 
Spirit, writing by St. Paul in Holy Scripture, relates 
that St. Peter erred. We believe that St. Peter 
erred, because the Holy Spirit, who cannot err, 
asserts by St. Paul in Scripture that he did err 7 . 
But let us not confound the Writers with the men. 
Let us distinguish the Writings from the practice of 
those by whose hands they were written. Men they 
were, and being men, though holy men, they were 
liable to err. But the Writings which God the Holy 
Ghost dictated by their instrumentality, and which 
have been received as Holy Scripture by the Chris- 
tian Church Universal, are exempt from error. And 
why ? Because in writing they had the gift of the 

1 Acts xiv. 15. 2 James iii. 2. 

3 Ps. cvi. 33. 4 Ps. li. 

5 Acts xv. 37—39. 6 Gal. ii. 11—14. 

7 This topic is admirably handled by S. Augustine in his corre- 
spondence with S. Jerome, Epist. xxviii. xl. and lxxxii.; as may be 
seen in the note on Gal. ii. 11, in the Author's Edition ; cp. the note 
at the end of that chapter. 



But as Writers of Scripture they did not err in writing. 15 

Holy Ghost who led them into all truth 8 . And their 
words were not such as man's tvisdom teacheth, but 
which the Holy Ghost teacheth*; and, as St. Peter 
says, they spake being moved by the Holy Ghost ' ; and 
the Holy Ghost is the Spirit of Truth 2 , and every 
Scripture 3 , St. Paul declares, is given by inspira- 
tion of God. The workmen were human, but the 
work is divine. They had the treasure in earthen 
vessels i , but the treasure itself is not earthly, but 
heavenly. The Channels, through which the water 
of Holy Scripture flows, are like the Roman aque- 
ducts of brick or stone stretching across the Cam- 
pagna, but the Water itself, which flows through 
them, is living water of salvation, streaming forth 
from the heavenly Hills, even from the pure well- 
spring of the Wisdom and Love of God. 

6. Here also we may advert to those who allege that 
the language of the Apostles is not from God, because 
they sometimes speak doubtingly. Inspiration is not 
Omniscience. The Divine Spirit did not convert the 
Apostles into Divine beings. His aid was given to 
the Writers of Scripture according to the need. 
Sometimes it swelled the sails of their minds with a 
vehement gale ; and at other times, when the oars of 
human toil, and the pilotage of human prudence, 
nearly sufficed for the purpose, would fan them only 



8 John xvi. 13. 9 1 Cor. ii. 13. 

1 2 Pet. i. 21. 2 John xiv. 17 ; xv. 26. 

3 naa-a ypcxp-f), every Scripture (2 Tim. iii. 16). 

* 2 Cor. iv. 7. 



16 Why the Writers of Scripture sometimes speak 
doubtingly. 

with a gentle breeze ; sometimes it was almost lulled. 
He allowed the Evangelists to speak doubtingly in 
Scripture in some minor matters, where doubt was not 
hurtful ; such as, for instance, in the capacity of the 
vessels of Cana 5 , or in the number of furlongs which 
the Apostles had rowed 6 . He allowed St. Paul to 
avow, that whether he was in the body or out of the 
body, when he was caught up into the third heaven, 
he could not tell 1 ; and to say that he hnoivs not whe- 
ther he baptized any besides those whom he men- 
tions 8 ; and He permitted him to express doubts con- 
cerning the future 9 . He inspired them to inform us 
of their doubts in these cases, in order that, in those 
other more momentous and mysterious matters, 
wherein they express no doubt, we might feel sure 
that they speak, not from themselves, but God. 

7. Again. Doubtless there is a perfect language 
in heaven. But we may not allow ourselves to forget, 
that when God communicated the mysteries of Reve- 
lation to the world, in the pages of Holy Scripture, 
He did not speak in the tongues of Angels, nor did 
He create any new language, but He used a language 
already in being, a language formed by the ordinary 
intercourse of man with man, a language spoken in 
senates and law-courts, and streets and market-places 

5 John ii. 6. 

c John vi. 19. Cp. xi. 18. Acts iv. 4. Luke ix. 28. 
7 2 Cor. xii. 2. * 1 Cor. i. 16. 

9 Rom. xv. 24. 1 Cor. xvi. 5, 6. 2 Cor. i. 15—17- Phil. ii. 19. 
1 Tim. iii. 14. 



Language of Scripture. 17 

of the world. Writing to men, He used the language 
of men. The medium by which He revealed the 
mysteries of the Gospel, was ancient and human, but 
what He revealed thereby was novel and Divine. 

It is with Scripture as with Christ's Tribute- 
money \ The metallic ore, of which that money was 
made, was from God, it was dug up in the mine ; and 
Christ by His miraculous power brought up the sum 
paid, from the depths of the sea : but the Coin itself, in 
which the sum was paid, had been struck in Caesar's 
mint. So the substance of Scripture Doctrine is from 
God. Its mysteries are brought up from the abysses 
of Divine Wisdom. And the words in which it is 
taught, are words employed by God, through the 
ministry of Inspired men. But the language of which 
those words form a part, was framed by man ; it was 
struck in a human mint ; and like every thing 
human, by whomsoever used, that language was not 
free from imperfection ; though doubtless the words, 
when used by men under the guidance of God, serve 
perfectly all the purposes, which God, in using them, 
intended them to serve. Almighty God did not 
destroy the writers' identity, He did not annul their 
free-will, but He used the writers aright. He did 
not create a new language, but He used the old with 
Divine Wisdom and Truth, 

8. One more prefatory observation may be made 
here. 

1 Matt. xvii. 24—27- 



18 Various Headings in Scripture. 

It is sometimes alleged, that since the collation of 
the different Manuscripts of the Old and New Testa- 
ment has brought to light an immense multitude of 
Various Readings, amounting to some hundreds of 
thousands, therefore, in this diversity of authorities, 
even if an inspired Text, and faultless Original, did 
exist any where, it would be impossible for us to find 
it out. 

As to this objection from the multitude of Various 
Readings, this is not an evidence of uncertainty in 
the Sacred Text, but it is a proof of its certainty. The 
words of the original Scripture have been transcribed 
by human copyists, and though it may be allowed 
that no single copy, now existing, either of the Old or 
New Testament in their original tongues, exhibits 
precisely verbatim et literatim what was written 
by the Prophets and Apostles, yet it is certain that, 
by the collation of the copies which have been pre- 
served, we have the Text of the Holy Scriptures in 
such a form, as may be depended on for all that 
we require, and that, in receiving that Text, we 
receive the Oracles of God. 

For, let us consider ; Whence does this multitude 
of Various Readings arise ? From the multitude of 
copies. And this multitude of copies is the very 
thing which secures and proves the integrity of the 
Text. If there were only a few copies, there would 
be few Various Readings ; and if there was only one 
copy, there would be no Various Readings at all. 
But then we should only have one witness to depend 



What is the true ground for belief in the Inspiration 19 
of the Bible? 

upon. But now we have many thousand witnesses, 

and since these witnesses do vary in some very slight, 

trivial, and insignificant matters, such as the chance 

omission of a word, or its transposition, or in a 

particle or conjunction, we see that there is no 

collusion, no conspiracy among the witnesses. And 

since they agree in all substantial respects, we are 

sure that what they witness is true ; that is, that the 

Text, obtained by their aid, is correct, that it is a 

faithful representation of the Words dictated to the 

Prophets, Apostles, and Evangelists, by the Holy 

Spirit of God. 

III. Let us now proceed to suppose that an 
unbeliever were to address us, and ask for a reason 
of the hope that is in us, when we assert our 
belief that the Bible is the Word of God. What 
answer should we give to that question ? 

If that belief is sound, there must be a reason for 
it. And since the Bible is for all, and all are bound 
to believe its doctrines and obey its precepts, it is 
clear that the answer to be given to this question 
ought to be of such a kind, that all, however un- 
learned, may be able to give it, and that all to whom 
it is given ought to be satisfied with it. 

Suppose therefore that an unbeliever were to ask 
you this question, On what grounds do you believe 
the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the 
Bible, to be the written Word of God ? 

1. Some persons have said, in reply to this in- 



20 Erroneous ground upon which some build their belief 

quiry, that they themselves have an inward spiritual 
illumination, by which they are enabled to discern 
the Bible to be God's "Word. The Spirit in their 
hearts, they affirm, bears witness to the Spirit in the 
Bible, and assures them that it is His "Word. 

But is this answer adequate ? Is it satisfactory ? 

Doubtless every devout person will feel, in reading 
the Bible, that he is reading no common book ; he 
will feel his heart hum within him with holy love 
and joy, when he listens to its words, and when he 
observes also the harmony of the various parts of the 
Bible, and its adaptation to the needs of our nature, 
and the fulfilment of its prophecies ; and when he 
reflects on the moral and social benefits conferred by 
the Bible on the world ; and when he meditates on 
the wonderful dispensations of Grod's providence in 
protecting and preserving the Bible 2 . Every one 
who is really enlightened with divine grace will feel 
a strong persuasion that it is the Word of God. 

2. But such considerations as these, important as 
they are, would not suffice to convince an unbeliever 
that the ivhole Bible is the Word of God. We need 
some other aid; and as for the appeal to our own 
individual consciousness, can it truly be said by any 
man, that, if portions of the Bible were interspersed 
with portions of an uninspired book, — such as the 
Book of Ecclcsiasticus or of Wisdom, — and if, being 
thus blended together, they were placed before him, 

2 See below, Lscture V. pp. 102—114. 



in the Inspiration oftlie Bible. 21 

lie could, by his own internal consciousness, discern 
and separate at once what is inspired from what is 
uninspired 3 ? 

We cannot admit this. 



3 Hooker says well on this point (Eccl. Pol. III. viii. 15): — " I doubt 
not but men of wisdom and judgment will grant, that the Church, in 
this point especially (the Inspiration of Holy Scripture) is furnished 
with reason, to stop the mouths of her impious adversaries ; and that 
as it were altogether bootless to allege against them what the Spirit 
hath taught us, so likewise that even to our own selves it needeth 
caution and explication how the testimony of the Spirit may be dis- 
cerned, by what means it may be known ; lest men think that the 
Spirit of God doth testify those things which the spirit of error sug- 
gesteth. The operations of the Spirit, especially these ordinary which 
be common to all true Christian men, are, as we know, things secret 
and undiscernible even to the very soul where they are, because their 
nature is of another and an higher kind than that they can be by us 
perceived in this life. Wherefore albeit the Spirit lead us into all 
truth and direct us in all goodness, yet because these workings of the 
Spirit in us are so privy and secret, we therefore stand on a plainer 
ground, when we gather by reason from the quality of things believed 
or done, that the Spirit of God hath directed us in both, than if we 
settle ourselves to believe or to do any certain particular thing, as being 
moved thereto by the Spirit." 

And Bishop Burnet (on the Vlth Article) judiciously observes ; In 
proof of the Inspiration of Holy Scripture, •' I will not urge that of 
the testimony of the Spirit, which many have had recourse to : this is 
only an argument to him that feels it, if it is one at all ; and therefore 
it proves nothing to another person ; besides, the utmost that with 
reason can be made of this is, that a good man, feeling the very power- 
ful effects of the Christian religion on his own heart, in the reforming 
his nature, and the calming his conscience, together with those com- 
forts that arise out of it, is convinced in general of the whole of Chris- 
tianity, by the happy effects that it has upon his own mind ; but it 
does not from this appear, how he should know that such books and 
such passages in them should come from a Divine original, or that he 
should be able to distinguish what is genuine in them from what is 
spurious.' ' 



22 Private Consciousness no safe ground for belief in 
Inspiration. 

We do well to believe the Inspiration of the Bible. 
But let those who would build their belief upon 
their own feelings, in this momentous matter, be 
affectionately entreated to consider, whether they may 
not haply be building on the sand. We need solid 
arguments to persuade others. We need strong rea- 
sons to convince the unbeliever that the tvhole Bible is 
the Word of God : he will not be satisfied with asser- 
tions, he will require proofs. Our perceptions are 
no rule for him. He will not ask for emotions, but 
evidences; he will require, not feelings, but facts. 
He may say to us, " You feel that the Bible is in- 
spired, but I have no such feeling ; and why should 
I rather be guided by your feelings in receiving the 
Bible, than you be swayed by my feelings in rejecting 
it ? Besides, if I am to be influenced by men's 
sentiments, I should have as many different Bibles 
as there are different Beligions. The Brahmin feels 
that a divine spirit speaks to him in the Yedas ; the 
Mahometan hears a divine voice in the Koran ; the 
Jew recognizes a divine presence in the Old Testa- 
ment, but denies its existence in the New. And 
even among Christians some* receive the Apocry- 
phal Books, such as the Books of Judith and Tobit, . 
as divinely inspired, while others do not own them 
as such 5 . If personal feelings and opinions, apart 
from logical proofs, are to determine the matter, 

4 The Church of Rome. Concil. Trident. Sess. iv. 

5 The Church of England, Art. VI. 



Origin and disastrous results of that Theory. 23 

every form of Religion may have a separate Bible of 
its own, and there can be no common standard, no 
uniform Rule of Faith and Practice for all." 

3. Consider, also, to what disastrous results this 
reference to private feelings and opinions in the 
solemn question of Inspiration, has already led. 

That theory was first put forth at the Reformation 
in the sixteenth century by some pious men, to 
whom the world owed much. For example, to cite 
one of the greatest names of that time — Martin 
Luther said that he could not reconcile the doctrine 
of St. James with that of St. Paul, on the subject of 
Justification, and that therefore, inasmuch as he ac- 
cepted the doctrine of St. Paul, he must reject the 
Epistle of St. James. In a similar temper he rejected 
the Book of Revelation of St. John the Divine. He 
did not feel their Inspiration ; they were not con- 
genial to his own opinions ; they did not approve 
themselves to his mind. The Apostle St. Paul was 
inspired, because Martin Luther felt his inspiration. 
But the Apostles St. James and St. John were to 
wait, till the feelings of Martin Luther should change, 
for an allowance of their Inspiration. There is rea- 
son to believe that Luther lived long enough to rue 
this rash and reckless presumption 6 . But this ex- 
ample of arbitrary wilfulness, in dealing with Holy 
Scripture, did great mischief. Other Reformers, 
and even entire Reformed Churches 7 , — happily not 

6 See Gerhardi Loci Theol. Appendix de Scr. Sacra, § 279 and § 299. 

7 Confessio Belgica v. Confessio Gallicana iv. 



24 Calamitous consequences of that Theory. 

the Church, of England 8 , — grounded their recognition 
of Holy Scripture, and their belief in its Inspiration, 
upon what they called the internal witness of the 
Spirit in themselves. They resolved their belief 
into a mere private intuition, and personal assurance 
in their own hearts. They made themselves the 
judges of God's Word. 

Here is the root of the evil which has now grown 
up into a great tree and overshadows Europe with 
darkness, and blights the vegetation beneath it, and 
yields deadly fruit. This internal Consciousness could 
only be an argument to the man who felt it, but 
could afford no conviction to others. They who 
rested their belief in the Bible on such a basis as 
that, could not defend the Bible against those who 
assailed it. Their belief in the Bible was true, but 
it rested on false grounds. It was built on the shift- 
ing quicksand of private opinion. As long as that 
inner Consciousness led them to acknowledge the 
Truth and Inspiration of the Bible, so long the un- 
soundness of their foundation did not manifestly 
appear. For some time they went on appealing to 
their own Consciousness, acknowledging the truth and 
divine origin of the Bible. But they were dwelling 
all the while in a tottering house; and ere long 
the storm came, and the house fell. Persons arose 
among them, who appealed to their own Conscious- 
ness, as a sufficient reason for rejecting the Bible. 

8 See below, Lecture IV. p. 90. 



Sceptical development of the Theory of private 25 
consciousness. 

And they who had received the Bible on the assur- 
ance of their own supposed inner illumination, had 
no reply to offer to those who rejected it on similar 
grounds. The inner Consciousness of the one party 
was set in hostile array against the inner Conscious- 
ness of the other party. But who could arbitrate 
between them ? 

4. Thus in looking back to the history of Christen- 
dom, we see that the erroneous principle which was 
adopted by some pious men, in support of the Bible, 
three centuries ago, has now been applied by others 
to destroy the Bible. That erroneous principle has 
afforded a triumph to Infidelity. 

The recently published volume, entitled "Essays 
and Reviews," which has startled and shocked the 
religious mind of the English Public, is only a na- 
tural fruit of the waywardness of private opinion de- 
veloped in a sceptical direction. It has brought 
openly to the surface what has long been lurking 
beneath it ; and if we are not wanting to ourselves, 
great good may be the result. The evil is now mani- 
fest. It displays itself in the light of day. 

Relying on what they call " the verifying faculty " 
in their own minds, some impugn the veracity and 
genuineness of the Pentateuch, because they think 
that its records are inconsistent with the results of 
scientific research, or because they suppose its lan- 
guage to be posterior to the age of Moses. Some 
reject the Book of Daniel, because they imagine that 
its Prophecies were subsequent to the events which 

c 



26 Injurious effects of that Theory on the moral influence 
of the Bible, 

it professes to predict. Some will not receive the 
second Epistle of St. Peter, because the style of that 
Epistle differs from the First, and because they think 
that both those Epistles could not have been written 
by the same Author 9 . In short there is scarcely a 
single book in the Bible, which has not now been 
called into question by men who are swayed by 
their own feelings, and biassed by their own private 
opinions. " The nature of the Inspiration of Scrip- 
ture," they say, " can only be shown from the exa- 
mination of Scripture '," and whatever they find in 
the Bible congenial to themselves, whatever harmo- 
nizes with their own sentiments, that they believe to 
be inspired, and that alone. Thus the divinity of 
the Bible is made to depend on the fickleness of 
human caprice ; and " unless God pleases man, He is 
to be no longer God 2 ." 

5. The Genuineness and Inspiration of the Bible 

9 Evidence of the truth of what is stated above, and much more to 
the same effect, may be seen in the Works of two German Writers, 
Havernick's Einleitung in das Alte Testament, 1836—1849, and 
Guerike's Einleitung in das N. T., 1843. See also the valuable sum- 
mary in the History of German Protestantism, pp. 100 — 134, by the 
Rev. E. H. Dewar, M.A., British Chaplain at Hamburgh, 1848. And 
before that time, the voice of warning had been raised by the late 
revered and beloved Hugh James Rose, in his Sermons preached before 
the University of Cambridge in 1824, and in the Appendix to them in 
1828, and in his letter to the Bishop of London, 1829. 

1 " Essays and Reviews," p. 347. And again, "To the question, 
' What is inspiration ? ' the first answer is, ' The idea which we gather 
from the study of it.' This is reconcileable with variations in fact in 
the Gospels . . . with inaccuracies of language in the Epistles of 
St. Paul." 

2 Tertullian, Apol. c. 5. Nisi homini Deus placuerit, Deus non erit. 



and on its rigid Interpretation. 27 

as a whole being thus made matter of doubt, the 
Bible itself is to be no longer the standard of Faith 
and Practice, but the varying consciousness of the 
individual is to be substituted in the place of God's 
holy Word. 

6. Nor can there be any uniform standard of In- 
terpretation, upon such principles as these. The Bible 
becomes like a rule of lead, which men may bend 
and twist aside according to their own will 3 . And 
thus they fall under St. Peter's censure, who says 
that they that are unlearned and unstable ivrest the 
Scriptures to their oivn destruction 4 . 

IV. This condition of things is fraught with 
solemn warning and instruction. It teaches us that 
it is not enough to believe the truth, but that it is 
necessary to believe it on right grounds. If Belief is 
made to rest on a wrong foundation, it must give 
rise to Unbelief. It is not enough to believe that 
the Bible, the whole Bible, is God's written Word, 
but it is necessary to be able to convince others that 
this proposition is true. It is necessary to be always 
ready to give to every man that asketh us a reason of the 
hope that is in us. 

Let us examine ourselves, whether we are able to 
do this. Let those who have hitherto built their 

3 Or, in the language of the poet Dryden, 

" Their airy faith will no foundation find ; 
The Word's a weathercock to every wind." 

4 2 Pet. iii. 16. 

c 2 



28 'Religious crisis for England. 

belief on the unsound basis of private feelings and 
private opinions, be earnestly entreated to contem- 
plate the gigantic superstructure of error, which has 
now risen up in Europe upon that unsound basis. 
Let them be desired with words of tenderness and 
love, — to reconsider and revise their principles. The 
prevalence of Infidelity among us, the avowal of 
strange doctrines concerning the Inspiration of the 
Bible, which is the groundwork of all our hopes, 
imperatively demand this at their hands. 

England is now on her trial. Now is the crisis of 
her religious life. If she has strength to eject the 
poison which has been infused into her, she may 
become more vigorous and healthy than before. But 
if not, then that poison will curdle in her veins, and 
her whole system will be diseased, and a moral mor- 
tification will ensue ; and England will be in a few 
years, what some other Nations of Europe now are. 

Let us, my beloved brethren, consider calmly the 
signs of the times ; let us endeavour earnestly, by 
Grod's grace, to understand and maintain the truth ; 
let us charitably and wisely labour to overcome evil 
with good. Then we may be sure, that the dangers, 
by which the Faith is now assailed, will prove means 
and occasions of new victories. Our difficulties are 
our opportunities. Our midnight is God's noon. 
Our trials may be our triumphs. They may con- 
duce to heal our unhappy differences and dissensions, 
and to unite us all in the truth. 

If the Bible is the unerring word of the Ever- 



Hopes for the future, 29 

living God ; if, as we believe it is, it is the Universal 
Rule of Faith, and Practice ; if it is the Charter of 
our social and national privileges upon earth, and of 
our everlasting citizenship in heaven ; if it is the 
Code, by which we shall be judged at the Great 
Day ; then we may be sure, that all attacks upon it 
will one day recoil upon those who make them, 
like the foam and spray dashed from the firm-set 
rock. The violence of the storm will prove the 
strength of the fortress, and will confirm our belief 
in its impregnability, and in the faithfulness and 
power of Him, whose Divine Eye is ever upon it, 
and who shields it with the defence of His own Al- 
mighty protection. And thus, though the sea around 
us is tempestuous, and though the waters thereof rage 
and swell, yet in His own appointed time the rivers of 
the flood thereof ic ill make glad the city of God". 

With fervent hopes and earnest prayers for that 
blessed and glorious result, these introductory obser- 
vations have been submitted to you on this subject ; 
and it has been my endeavour to examine the prin- 
ciples which have been adopted by some, whose zeal 
for God's holy Word cannot be questioned, and to 
test the soundness of those principles by their re- 
sults. 

Time does not now allow us to consider on the 
present occasion, what is the true foundation on which 

5 Ps. xlvi. 2, 3. 

c 3 



30 Subject proposed for the following Discourses. 

the belief of the Inspiration of Holy Scripture is to 
be built ; and what are the reasons by which we may- 
hope to convince others, who do not now believe, 
that the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but 
the Bible, is the written Word of God. 

This task will be undertaken in the Discourses 
that will be delivered in this Church on the Sunday 
Afternoons of the ensuing month. Brethren, let me 
entreat your prayers for God's help in this work, 
for His honour and glory, through Jesus Christ our 
Lord. 



LECTURE II. 



Romans iii. 1, 2. 



What advantage then hath the Jew ? Much every way : chiefly, be- 
cause that unto them were committed the Oracles of God, 

I. 1. In last Sunday's discourse we entered on the 
inquiry ; 

By what reasons are we persuaded, and by what 
arguments would we persuade others, that the Bible, 
the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible, is the/ 
written Word of God ? 

It was then observed, that some pious persons have 
replied to this question by saying, that they them- 
selves have an inward illumination, by which they 
are enabled to distinguish the Bible from all other 
books ; and they rest their belief in the Inspiration 
of the Bible upon this private assurance. 

But, as was then remarked, this assurance on their 
part cannot exercise any influence on others. Our 
belief in the Inspiration of the Bible cannot induce 
the unbeliever to receive it as God's Word. 

c 4 



32 Recapitulation. 

It has also been already shown, that this appeal 
to private feelings and opinions, as the groundwork 
of belief in the Bible, has led to unhappy results. If 
we refer to our own feelings and opinions as an ade- 
quate proof of its Inspiration, we must not be sur- 
prised to find that other persons refer to their feel- 
ings and opinions, in disproof of it. When men 
make themselves to be the measures of truth, they 
are in great danger of losing the truth. They soon 
become entangled in a labyrinth of contradictions, 
and instead of strengthening the foundation of the 
Bible, they are like the builders of Babel, distracted 
with the strife of tongues. 

2. It is scarcely necessary to add, that we cannot 
prove from Scripture itself, that Scripture is Gfod's 
"Word. The Holy Spirit says by St. Paul, that all 
Scripture is given by inspiration of God 1 . But it 
must first be proved by some arguments external to 
Scripture, as well as by internal evidence, derivable 
from Scripture, that St. Paul himself, when he wrote 
these words, wrote under the inspiration of Grod 3 . 

1 2 Tim. iii. 16. 

2 See Hooker, I. xiv. 1. "Of things necessary, the very chiefest is 
to know what books we are bound to esteem holy ; which point is con- 
fessed impossible for Scripture itself to teach." And again, II. iv. 2, " It 
is not the Word of God which doth, or possibly can assure us that we 
do well to think that is His Word; for if any one Book of Scripture 
did give testimony to all, yet still that Scripture would require another 
to give credit to it ; nor could we ever come to any pause to rest our 
assurance this way, so that unless beside Scripture there were some- 
thing that might assure us that we do well, we could not think we do 
well, no not in being assured that Scripture is a sacred and holy rule of 
well-doing." 



What are the true grounds for heliefin the 33 
Inspiration of the Old Testament? 

II. Let us now proceed to examine, what the true 
answer to the inquiry is ? 

Let us begin with the Old Testament. On what 
grounds are we convinced, and by what proofs would 
we endeavour to persuade others, that the whole of 
the Old Testament is the Word of God ? 

1. First, we would reply, we receive the Old Tes- 
tament as inspired, on the testimony of Gfod, de- 
clared in the consent and practice of the Jewish 
Nation, to which, as the Apostle says, were delivered * 
the Oracles of God. St. Paul here affirms that the 
Ancient Jewish Church was the divinely constituted 
Recipient and Guardian of the Old Testament. Its 
testimony on this matter is the testimony of God. 

2. Secondly, we receive the Old Testament as 
inspired on the Testimony of the Son of God Him- 
self, our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jestjs Christ. 

First, then, we receive the Old Testament as in- 
spired, on the testimony of God declared by the 
Jewish Nation. 

III. Here we must begin by showing that the Old 
Testament, as it now exists in our age, is the same as 
the Old Testament in the first century of the Chris- 
tian era : in other words, we must prove its In- 
tegrity. 

3 St. Paul's words are iiricrT^vB-qcrav ra \6yia : a stronger phrase 
than that in our English Version. " They were entrusted with the 
oracles of God." They were the Trustees and Guardians of the Old 
Testament ; and St. Paul would not have used this expression, if they 
had been unfaithful to that sacred trust. 

c 5 



34 Integrity of the Text 

This may be demonstrated from the fact, that the 
Old Testament has been publicly read both in Jewish 
Synagogues 4 , and in Christian Churches 5 , throughout 
the world, every week, from the first century to the 
present day. 

The multiplication of copies of the Old Testament, 
for the purposes of this weekly public Reading in 
the Jewish Synagogues on the Jewish Sabbath, and 
in Christian Churches on the Lord's Day, and this 
public Reading itself, have served as providential 
guarantees for the preservation of the Old Testa- 
ment. 

Even if any of the Jews had ever desired to tamper 
with the Text of the Old Testament, they would have 
been prevented from effecting such a purpose by the 
diffusion of Copies of the Old Testament in all parts 
of the world 6 . Even if all the Jewish Synagogues 
had conspired together to alter the Text of the Old 
Testament, which is a thing incredible, they would 
have been hindered and checked from doing so by 
the counteracting vigilance of Christian Churches, 
guarding the Old Testament, and publicly reading 
the Old Testament in all parts of the civilized world. 

And if, on the other side, any. Christian Churches 

4 See on Acts xiii. 15 ; xv. 21. Josephus c. Apion. ii. p. 107-, and 
the authorities in Vitringa's treatise De Synagoga Vetere, lib. iii. pt. 
2, c. 8, p. 90 1, ed. Franck. 10'JG. 

5 See the authorities in Bingham's Antiquities, book xiv. ch. 
iii. 

6 See S. Augustine's observation on this point, de Civitate Dei, xv. 
c. 13. 



of the Old Testament, liow secured, and proved. 85 

had ever attempted to make any change in the Old 
Testament, such an attempt would have been exposed 
and frustrated by the Jews. 

Thus we see, that under God's providential care 
for the Old Testament, even the rivalry and enmity 
of Jews and Christians have been overruled for good ; 
they have been made instrumental in the preserva- 
tion of His Holy Word, and in assuring the world of 
its integrity. 

A Poet of old, speaking of a ship in a stormy 
night, says, " that in such a night it is good to have 
two Anchors cast out of the vessel ;" one anchor 
from the prow, the other at the stern, in order that 
it may ride safely in the storm 7 . In the tempests of 
the long night of many centuries, the sacred vessel 
of Holy Scripture has been moored securely on the 
two Anchors of the Jewish Synagogue and of the 
Christian Church. 

It is certain that the Old Testament, as it is now 
in the hands of the Jews dispersed every where, 
coincides exactly with the Old Testament in the 
hands of the Christian Churches diffused throughout 
the world. 

This coincidence is an incontrovertible proof, that 
the Old Testament, which we have in our own hands 
at this day, is the same as the Old Testament in the 
first century of the Christian era. 

IV. Let us, therefore, now ascend in our thoughts 
to the first century of the Christian era, and imagine 

7 Pindar, Olymp. vi. 172. 

c 6 



3G With what reverence the Jews in our Lord's age 

ourselves living then, and suppose the case of pious 
Israelites, such, for example, as an aged Simeon or a 
guileless Nathanael at that time. 

By what arguments would they have been per" 
suaded, and by what evidence would they have 
sought to persuade others, that the Old Testament 
which they had, is inspired by God ? 

1. Doubtless the first motive which impelled the 
devout Israelite to acknowledge the Old Testament 
as divine, was the fact that he saw it set apart from 
all other Books by the universal consent and uniform 
practice of his own Nation, to which God had vouch- 
safed wonderful marks of His favour and blessing. 

He saw the Books of the Old Testament treated 
with pious reverence by the whole Hebrew People. 
He beheld those Books treasured up with devout 
care in the Synagogues, and brought forth, Sabbath 
after Sabbath, from the sacred chest in those Syna- 
gogues ; he saw those Volumes unveiled, and un- 
rolled with holy veneration; and before and after 
the reading of those Writings, he heard the accents of 
blessing and praise addressed to God for the gift of 
those sacred Writings, and he listened to their words 
recited with scrupulous care, and venerated with reli- 
gious awe 8 . 

8 The Jewish authorities, describing the forms and ceremonies used 
in the Synagogues, at the reading of the Old Testament, may be seen 
in the Treatise of Vitringa, De Synagoga Vetere, lib. iii. pt. ii. cap. 8, 
pp. 961 — 975- See also the account of the reading of the Old Testa- 
ment in the Synagogues, in Prideaux's Connexion, part i. book vi. on 
b c. 443—433. 



regarded the Old Testament ? Josephus. 37 

Every Jew, from his infancy, was thus impressed 
with a belief in their Truth and Inspiration. 

2. The feelings with which the pious Israelite re- 
garded the Old Testament are thus described by a 
Writer living in the Apostolic age, who was eminently 
qualified to bear witness on this subject. That per- 
son is Josephus, the Jewish Historian, one of the 
most learned Authors of that time, a Pharisee, and of 
a priestly family, and descended from the Asmonean 
Princes. He speaks of the Old Testament as fol- 
lows 9 : " We Jews have not a multitude of books at 
variance with one another," as the Heathen have, 
"but we have only Twenty-two Books." Such was 
the reckoning of the Jews, by whom several Books 
of the Old Testament were counted as one ; for in- 
stance, the Twelve Minor Prophets were reckoned 
by them as one Book \ and so, on the whole, their 
Twenty-two Books, beginning with Genesis and end- 
ing with Malachi, correspond to our Books of the 
Old Testament. " We have only Twenty-two Books, 
which contain the record of all time, and are the 
Books which are rightly believed to be divine. Five 
of these are the Books of Moses, which comprise our 
Laws, and the history of the human race until the 
death of Moses." 

Josephus then proceeds to describe the other 
Books of the Old Testament ; and sums up his account 
with these memorable words ; — " We show by our 

9 Josephus c. Apion. i. § 8. 

1 See Bp. Cosin on the Canon of Scripture, chap. ii. 



38 On what grounds did that reverence rest ? 

practice, what our belief is in these Books. For, 
although so long a time has elapsed since these 
Books were written, yet no one has ever ventured to 
make any addition to them, nor to take any thing 
from them, nor to make any change in them. And 
it is a principle innate in every Jew, to regard these 
Boohs as Oracles of God, and to cleave to them ; yea 
and to die gladly for them." 

3. Such, then, was the judgment of the Jewish 
Nation concerning the Old Testament. 

On what proofs did this judgment rest ? 

First, the Diffusion of those Books into all parts of 
the world, and the weekly public Beading of them 
for many centuries in Synagogues before the Chris- 
tian era, had secured them inviolate. The Transla- 
tion also of those Books into the Greek language 2 , 
and the multiplication of copies in that language was 
another safeguard. The formation of Chaldee Para- 
phrases of the Old Testament served also for a 
similar purpose. 

4. Even the greatest national afflictions of the 
Hebrew People had been made by God to subserve 
His gracious purposes in guarding, preserving, and 
disseminating His own Word, and in assuring the 
world of its Integrity. 

In the age of King Behoboam, the son of Solomon, 
Ten Tribes of Israel had revolted from the House of 
Judah 3 , and they always remained separate from the 

2 See Josephus, Antiquities xii. 2. 4 — 15. 

3 1 Kings xii. 16—19. 



Integrity of the Old Testament, how secured. 39 

Two Tribes of Judah and Benjamin. Israel and 
Judah were split asunder, and formed two rival king- 
doms. This was a great calamity, but God educed 
good from it : the one kingdom acted as a check on 
the other in the custody of the Bible. Though these 
kingdoms were opposed to each other in other 
respects, yet they agreed in receiving the same 
Bible. Thus under God they co-operated in the 
guardianship of His Word. 

If King Jeroboam and his successors on the Throne 
of Israel, and the Ten Tribes who were subject to 
them, had been able to convict the Two Tribes of 
making any alteration in the Old Testament, they 
would not have failed to do so. The Kings of Israel, 
after its defection from Judah, set up rival objects of 
worship at Dan and Beersheba ; and they would have 
drawn off more worshippers from Jerusalem to their 
own altars, and have strengthened their own secular 
power, if they could have alleged with truth that the 
Two Tribes had been faithless to their trust, and had 
tampered with the Word of God. And if on their 
side, the Ten Tribes had made any change in the 
text of the Old Testament, the Two Tribes would 
have raised their protest against such alteration. 

The fact however is, that the Ten Tribes and the 
Two Tribes, though severed from each other by many 
religious jealousies, and political antipathies, had but 
one and the same Bible. Though Ephraim envied 
Judah, and Judah vexed Ephraim 4 , yet Ephraim and 

4 Isa. xi. 13. 



40 Veracity of the Old Testament, 

Judah agreed in receiving and revering the same 
Scriptures. And though in course of time the Ten 
Tribes were carried away captive 5 beyond the 
Euphrates, and were scattered abroad in Media and 
Persia, and also in Asia and Egypt ; and though 
afterwards the Two Tribes also were taken away 6 
from their own home to Babylon and to other cities 
of the East, yet all the Twelve Tribes, wherever dis- 
persed throughout the world, were united as one man 
in the reading of the same Scriptures ; and they have 
maintained that union inviolate even to this hour 7 . 

Y. This universal reception and public reading of 
the Old Testament is also a proof of its Truth. 

Consider the contents of the Old Testament. 
Open the Bible. Examine the Pentateuch, or five 
Books of Moses. They do not give a flattering 
representation of the Hebrew Nation. On the con- 
trary, they exhibit it in a very unfavourable light. 
They display the Israelites as rebelling against God 
immediately after they had been rescued from Egypt, 
and when He was doing mighty works in their 



* 2 Kings xvii. 6. 6 2 Kings xxiv. 10; xxv. 11. 20. 

7 The case of the Samaritan Pentateuch supplies no exception to this 
statement. The Samaritans were foreigners (see Luke xvii. 18, and 
cp. Hengstenberg, die Authentie des Pentateuches, p. 4), and not 
Israelites. And the coincidence of the Samaritan Pentateuch with 
the Hebrew affords a remarkable testimony to the integrity of the 
latter. See Walton, Prolegomena, cap. xi. The allegation that there 
are interpolations in the Pentateuch, which are later than the age of 
Moses, is examined and refuted by H'avernick, § 134, pp. 541—9 of 
the original work, or pp. 3G1, 3G2 of the English Translation, 1850. Cp. 
Hengstenberg, die Authentie des Pentateuches, vol. ii. pp. 179 — 338. 



how proved. 41 

behalf, and showering down favours upon them. If, 
as some allege, the Author of the Pentateuch had 
been writing a fictitious account of miracles that had 
never been wrought, and of mercies that had never 
been vouchsafed, he would have said that all the 
People were so astounded by the stupendous majesty 
of the miracles, and were so affected by the gracious 
beneficence of the mercies, that they were riveted 
by them in unswerving obedience. 

But no ; Moses displays to us the Hebrew Nation 
as falling into idolatry in the wilderness, after their 
deliverance from their enemies, and when Grod was 
about to give them the Law from Mount Sinai \ He 
exhibits them rebelling against God, when He was 
feeding them with bread from heaven, and giving 
them water from the rock 9 , and leading them with a 
pillar of fire \ At the close of the forty years' sojourn 
in the wilderness, just before his death, his testimony 
of them is, Ye have been rebellious against the Lord, 
from the clay that I knew you 2 . The Pentateuch is a 
censure upon Israel. St. Stephen, speaking in the 
Name of Jehovah, sums up its history, ye house 
of Israel, have ye offered to Me slain beasts and sacrifices 
by the space of forty years in the wilderness ? Yea, ye 
took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your 
God Remphan, figures which ye made to worship them : 
and I will carry you away beyond Babylon 3 . 

8 Exod. xxxii. 9 Exod. xvi. 2 ; and xvii. 2. 

1 Exod. xiv. 20. 

2 Deut. ix. 24. The whole Chapter is very important in this light. 

3 Acts vii. 42—44. 



42 Veracity of the Old Testament. 

The Books of Moses also relate, that on account of 
their sins, all the Israelites that came out of Egypt, 
with the exception of two, were excluded from the 
Land of Promise 4 . Thus the Author frankly con- 
fesses the insufficiency of his own guidance and 
government to bring them into that Land, and 
implies a failure on his part. 

He also honestly records his own sin, and his 
consequent exclusion from Canaan 5 . He relates the 
sin of his brother Aaron 6 in making the golden calf; 
and the sin of his sister Miriam 7 in murmuring 
against himself; and the sin of his brother's sons 
Nadab and Abihu 8 , for which they were destroyed 
by Grod ; and the sin of some of his own Tribe, 
Korah and his company, for which they were con- 
sumed by fire 9 . 

Men are prone to speak well of themselves, and to 
eulogize their own nation. No man, it may be safely 
affirmed, writes libels on himself, and on his own 
family, and on the people committed to his rule. 
Nations are wont to dress up and embellish their 
own History in terms flattering to themselves. But 
no Nation has ever adopted calumnies against itself, 
and publicly recited them, in all parts of the world, 
and venerated them as oracles of God. 

But the Hebrew People has accepted the Penta- 
teuch as its own History written by the hand of 



* Deut. i. 35, 36. 38. s Numb. xx. 12. 

6 Exod. xxxii. 7 Numb. xii. 1. 

8 Levit. x. J. 9 Numb. xvi. 



Divine Origin of the Pentateuch, how avouched. 43 

God. It has read it publicly as such ever since it 
was written. 

The great National yearly Festivals to which the 
Jews resorted from all parts of the world, were also 
standing monuments of the historical veracity of the 
Pentateuch. The Passover, Pentecost, and Taber- 
nacles, at which the Pentateuch was publicly read in 
the ears of all the people every seventh year \ com- 
memorated the wonderful facts, recorded by Moses in 
the Pentateuch, and bore witness to its truth. 

Therefore we may justly conclude that the Penta- 
teuch is true. 

YI. 1. The devout Israelite, being thus convinced 
of the Integrity and Truth of the Pentateuch, would 
next proceed to the proof of its Inspiration. 

In that true History he saw his own Nation set 
apart by God, from ancient days, as a holy People. 
He knew from that History that the Tabernacle 2 in 
the wilderness had been fenced off by God from 
other places. He knew that in that Tabernacle 
there was a place distinguished from the rest, and 
called the Holy of Holies. He knew that in the 
mysterious darkness of that Holy of Holies, separated 
by the Yeil, which hung before it, was the Ark ; and, 
above the Ark, the Mercy Seat ; and on the Mercy 
Seat the Cherubim, stretching their wings over it; 
and that this Mercy Seat was the Dwelling-place of 
the Divine Presence, and into that most Holy Place 

1 Deut. xxxi. 10. 2 Exod. xxv. 8—22 ; xxvi. 33. 



44 Original of the Pentateuch preserved in the Holy 
of Holies 

no one might enter, except the High Priest, and he 
only once a year 3 . 

2. Observe now the visible and practical testimony 
thus afforded by God Himself to the Inspiration of 
the Old Testament. 

As soon as the Pentateuch was written, He com- 
manded Moses to place it in the Holy of Holies, by 
the side of the Ark, the Throne of God 4 . God Him- 
self thus set apart that Book from all other books. 
He declared that it is not " a common book." He 
enshrined it in His own Oracle, He consecrated it. 
The God of Truth Himself thus avouched its vera- 
city. The Omnipotent thus protected it. He re- 
ceived it under the shadow of Sis Wings and made it 
safe under His feathers 5 . The Holy One of Israel 
thus also proclaimed its sanctity. He acknowledged 
it as His own. 

This Book of the Law, treasured up in the Holy of 
Holies, was the Original, from which Copies were to 
be made ; and it was the standard by which those 
copies were to be revised and verified. The sacred 
Original was to remain in the most Holy Place. But 



3 Levit. xvi. 2. 32. 

4 See Deut. xxxi. 9. 24 — 26. Josh. xxiv. 26. That this command 
concerned the whole Pentateuch is clearly shown by Havernick, Einlei- 
tung i. p. 1 9. The objection of some recent sceptical writers (such as 
De Wette and others), alleging that this statement is inconsistent with 
the assertion in 1 Kings viii. 9, that in Solomon's days there was no- 
thing in the Ark save the Two Tables of stone, is refuted by the fact 
that the Law is not said in Deut. xxxi. 26, to be deposited in the Ark, 
but by the side of it. Cp. Josephus, Antiq. viii. 4. 

5 Ps. xci. 4. 



and copied out by Kings with their own hand. 45 

the knowledge of its contents was to be diffused 
every where. 

In order still further to declare its divine autho- 
rity, Almighty God commanded that the Kings of 
the Hebrew Nation should make with their own 
hands a copy of the Law from the Original that 
was kept in the Holy of Holies 6 . Sovereigns were 
to be its transcribers, and to keep the Law of Grod 
always by their side, as the code and charter of their 
government 7 . 

This sacred Original was preserved in the Taber- 
nacle, and in the Temple, for many generations ? ; 
and in all probability it was this Original, which, 
having been rescued from the hands of idolatrous 
Princes, and secreted in evil days, was discovered in 
the Temple in the days of the good King Josiah 9 . 
It was the sight of that venerable Volume, written 
by the great Lawgiver, and the sound of the divine 
words recited from that holy oracle, which affected 
the tender heart of that pious youthful Prince with 
awe and penitential sorrow for the sins of the 
People committed to his charge, and with godly fear 
of the divine judgments hanging over their heads. 

3. The truth of the Pentateuch being proved, and 

6 Deut. xvii. 18, 19. Josh. i. 8. 

7 Cp. the remarks of Havernick, Einleitung, § 139 of the original, 
or § 35 of the English Translation. 

8 See preceding page. 

9 2 Chron. xxxiv. 14, 15. 2 Kings xxii. 8—10. See Bishop Pa- 
trick and Dr. Kennicott on 2 Kings xxii. 8, and Havernick's Ein- 
leitung, § 139, or § 35 of the English Translation. 



46 Divine Inspiration 

its Inspiration being avouched, it follows as a neces- 
sary consequence that the rest of the Old Testament is 
also divinely inspired. 

The Old Testament was called " the Law, and the 
Prophets x " and it is certain that all the Jews re- 
garded the Prophets as on a par with the Law. They 
revered the Law and the Prophets as the lively oracles 
of God. 

Almighty God had commanded in the Law, that 
if any man laid claim to be called a Prophet of the 
Lord, and could not establish that claim, he was to 
be put to death 2 . 

Thus God had provided a safeguard against the 
reception of any prophecy, which could not prove its 
divine origin. And since the Prophetical Books of 
the Old Testament were received universally by the 
Hebrew Nation as of equal authority with the Books 
of the Law, which were enshrined by God's com- 
mand in the Holy of Holies, this concurrent consent 
of God's people is no other than the witness of God 
Himself to the Divine Authority of the Prophets. 

Consider, also, that the Hebrew Prophets do not 
flatter the Hebrew People. They speak with holy 
boldness, as Ambassadors of God, in stern and severe 
language, and rebuke them for their sins, and call 
them to repentance, and denounce divine retribution 
upon them, unless they repent. God's commission 
to them was, Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice 

1 See Matt. xxii. 40. Luke xvi. 10. Acts xiii. 15. 

2 Deut. xiii. 5 ; xviii. 20. Cp. Jer. xiv. 15. Zech. xiii. 3. 



qf the Prophetical Books of the Old Testament. 47 

Uke a trumpet, and show My people their transgression, 
and the House of Jacob their sins 3 . 

Can it be supposed by any reasonable man, that 
the Hebrew People would have received such writings 
as theirs, and would have revered them as of equal 
authority with the Books of Moses, unless they had 
been constrained by the most cogent proofs and irre- 
sistible arguments to acknowledge their divine autho- 
rity? !No. They would have treated them in the 
same scornful and contumelious manner as the un- 
happy King Jehoiakim, sitting in his winter-house 
with the fire burning on the hearth, treated the 
Prophetic Poll of Jeremiah 4 ; they would have cut 
them into shreds, and have destroyed them. But 
no : they did not dare to do so. They received 
them; they bowed their heads before them with 
reverential awe, and acknowledged them to be the 
oracles of Grod. 

Thus even the sins of the Jews have been made 
instrumental in proving the Inspiration of the Old 
Testament. Their sins, by which they broke the 
commands contained in the Old Testament, show that, 
if they had been able, they would have rejected 
those Books by which their sins are condemned. 
But they received them as divine. They carry them 
every where in their hands. Even to this day they 
wander about, a National Cain, having killed their 

3 Isa. lviii. 1 . i Jer. xx^ i. 22. 



48 Completion of the Canon of the Old Testament. 

own brother Abel — the true Shepherd of the sheep, 
and bear about with them the mark of God 5 . 

4. Here also we have another proof that no altera- 
tion has ever been made in the Old Testament. The 
Prophets of God rebuke the People for their sins. 
But the Prophetical Books do not contain a single 
syllable of reproof addressed to the Jewish People 
for the sin of altering their Scriptures. If the 
People had ever committed so heinous a sin as 
that, it must have been noticed by the Prophets. 
And since those Books do not give any hint that any 
such alteration was ever attempted, we may rest 
assured, that the Hebrew Scriptures were preserved 
inviolate by the Hebrew People. 

VII. Let us now fix our eyes on the historical 
epoch when those Scriptures were completed. This 
was after the return of the Jews from Babylon; 
in the time of Ezra, about 440 years before Christ. 

Almighty God then raised up holy men, who re- 
vised the copies of the Old Testament, and were 
commissioned to add some writings to them, and to 
seal up the Scriptures, and to deliver them to future 
ages. Ezra himself, the Tried of God and Scribe* , 
was one of these ; and with him were the Prophets 
Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, whose divine mis- 
sion has been proved by the fulfilment of their 

5 Gen. iv. 15. 6 Ezra vii. 6. 10. 12. 



External Evidence confirmed hy internal. 49 

Prophecies. The sacred Yolume was then closed 7 . 
Malachi is called by the Jews " the Seal of the Pro- 
phets." The voice of Prophecy ceased with hira, 
and it remained silent for four hundred years, when 
it sounded forth again with clear accents at the 
coming of Christ. 

VIII. The pious Israelite, who meditated on these 
facts, would see strong reason to remain stedfast in 
the belief of his forefathers, that the Books of the 
Old Testament were given by Inspiration of God, 
And when he examined the contents of those Scrip- 
tures, the more he would be convinced that this 
belief is true. The beauty, majesty, and simplicity 
of the Hebrew Scriptures ; their adaptation to the 
nature and needs of mankind ; the holiness of their 
precepts, the harmony of all their parts, extending 
through a thousand years, the fulfilment of their 

7 See Josephus c. Apion. i. § 8, and the assertions of the Hebrew 
Rabbis in the Mishna, torn. iv. p. 409, ed. Surenhusii, Amst. 1702, 
and Buxtorfii Tiberias, capp. x. and xi. pp. 90 — 99, ed. Basil. 1665. 
Prideaux's Connexion, part i. books v. and vi. Bp. Beveridge on the 
Vlth Article, p. 271, ed. Oxf. 1840, and Havernick, Einleitung, § 8, pp. 
27—38, and Dr. W. Lee on Inspiration, p. 302. 

Ezra, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi revised the copies, and closed 
the Canon of the Old Testament. But the notion that Ezra restored 
the Old Testament, after it had been destroyed, is an apocryphal fable. 
Some ancient Christian Fathers are cited in support of it. Irenseus 
iii. 21. Cp. Euseb. H. E. v. 8. . Clemens Alex. Strom. 1. xxii. Ter- 
tullian de cultu mulier. c. 3. S. Jerome c. Helyid. c. 3. But they 
do not maintain it. The work de mirab. Script, (ii. 33) ascribed to 
S. Augustine, and quoted by some as countenancing tbat fable, is spu- 
rious. The Christian Fathers bear testimony to the genuine Jewish 
tradition that Ezra and the Prophets with him revised and completed 
the Canon of the Old Testament. 



50 Reply to tlie Sceptical allegation grounded 

prophecies, the blessings conferred on those who 
received and obeyed them, would establish him more 
firmly in that faith. 

IX. This faith of the ancient people of God is our 
faith also : we receive the Old Testament from the 
hands of those, to whom, as the Apostle says, were 
committed the oracles of God. 

A few words may be said here, in reply to a scep- 
tical objection. 

" Yon say that you receive Moses, David, and Isaiah, 
on the testimony of the Jews ; but did not the Jews 
reject Jesus Christ ? "What rational ground," we are 
asked, " can you assign for disregarding the decision 
of the Jews in the case of Jesus, and accepting it sub- 
missively in the case of Moses, David, and Isaiah 8 ? " 

To this question it may be replied, that the pious 
and devout Jews, who received Moses, David, and 
Isaiah, did not reject Jesus Christ. Nay rather, be- 
cause they received the Prophets, therefore they re- 
ceived Jesus Christ. Their language was, We have 
found Him of Whom Moses and the Prophets did write, 
Jesus of Nazareth the son of Joseph 9 . 

True it is, that some Jews who held the Old Tes- 
tament in their hands, but did not understand the 
voices of the Prophets, ivhich were read in their syna- 
gogues every Sabbath day, fulfilled them in condemning 

8 These words are transcribed from a Volume recently published by 
a sceptical writer. 

9 John i. 45. 



upon the rejection of Christ by the Jews. 51 

Him \ and thus, even by their unbelief, they proved 
the Truth and Inspiration of those Prophets. For, 
those Prophets had foretold, that many of the Jews 
to whom the Prophecies concerning Christ were deli- 
vered, would not understand and believe them. For 
example, Isaiah asks, when prophesying of Christ, 
Lord, ivho hath believed our report 2 ? He anticipates 
unbelief. Wonderful indeed it was, that the unbe- 
lieving Jews fulfilled those Prophecies, by doing 
those very things to Jesus Christ which those Prophe- 
cies foretold that they would do 3 . Thus the Unbelief 
of those who fulfilled those Prophecies by rejecting 
Christ, is an argument for the truth of those Pro- 
phecies, and it is a proof of the wisdom of those who 
understood those Prophecies and received Him. 

Indeed, here is another evidence of Grod's Divine 
power in preserving the Scriptures, and of Christ's 
truth, concerning whom those Scriptures speak. "We 
Christians receive Jesus Christ on the evidence of 
those Prophecies which are guarded by Jews who 
reject Christ. Therefore it cannot be alleged by the 
adversaries of Christianity, that we have tampered 
with the documents by which we prove its truth. 
Those documents come to us from the Jews. We 
appeal to the Old Testament, which is preserved by 
them who hold no converse with us. The Jews, even 



1 Acts xiii. 27. 

2 Isa. liii. 1. See St. John's comment on that passage of Isaiah. 
John xii. 38. 

3 Acts xiii. 27. 

D 2 



52 Review of the argument. 

to this day, guard the Title-deeds of Christ whom they 
have crucified. From the words of Moses, David, 
and Isaiah, in their hands, we prove the Divine mis- 
sion of Jesus Christ 4 . 

X. Let us now review what has been said. As 
soon as the Pentateuch was written, God provided 
for its safe custody. He enshrined it in the Holy of 
Holies, and placed it under the wings of the Cheru- 
bim. Thus God Himself declared it to be divine. 
That Book was a precious jewel set in a holy casket 
by His hand. Copies were to be made of it. Kings 
were to write them. " The Holy Spirit spake by the 
Prophets," and added their writings to the Law 
of Moses. The divine Institution of the weekly 
Sabbath, and of the yearly National Festivals, pro- 
moted the study of the Law, and bare witness to its 
truth. The dispersion of the Levites as the Exposi- 
tors of the Law, throughout the Holy Land ; and the 
raising up of Prophets, who were God's Messengers, 
were providential arrangements for preserving the 
Old Testament, and for assuring the People of its 
divine authority. The national calamities of the 
Hebrew People were made subservient to the same 
end. The dissolution of the Twelve Tribes into two 
separate kingdoms, and the downfall of those King- 



4 This argument is eloquently urged by S. Justin Martyr, Cohortat. 
ad Grascos, cap. 13, and by S. Augustine in Psalm, xl. and lvi. Pro- 
ferimus codices ab inimicis ut confundamus alios inimicos. Codicem 
portat Judaeus, unde credat Christianus. Librarii nostri facti sunt. See 
also his treatise c. Faustum, xii. c. 13, and de Unitate Ecclesise, c. 16. 



Review of the argument. 53 

doms, and the dispersion of the Ten Tribes and of 
the Two Tribes into all parts of the world, where 
Synagogues were built for the reading of the Scrip- 
tures on the Sabbath days ; and the universal con- 
sent of all those scattered Tribes, receiving the same 
Bible and venerating it as the Word of God, have 
also been instrumental in guarding and diffusing the 
Old Testament, and in guaranteeing its integrity 
and truth. 

These divine dispensations are clear evidences of 
design. They are witnesses of a providential super- 
intendence, watching over the Old Testament for 
fifteen hundred years from the days of Moses to those 
of Christ. Almighty God speaks by them, and pro- 
claims the integrity, the veracity, and the inspiration 
of the Old Testament. 

This testimony extends to the whole of the Old 
Testament. It covers the entire Yolume. 

That providential care has been also continued 
from the age of Christ to this hour, — that is, for near 
two thousand years. Even the rejection of Christ by 
the Jews, and their hostility to Christianity, have 
been made ministerial to the custody of the Scrip- 
tures, and to the proof of their Truth and Inspira- 
tion. 

The care with which God has guarded the Books 
of the Old Testament has not been relaxed for a 
moment since they were written. He that watcheth 
over them neither slumber 's nor sleeps 5 . Nay rather, 

5 Ps. cxxi. 4. 
D 3 



54 Julie testimony of the Hebrew Church to the Old 
Testament, confirmed by the witness of Christ. 

that providential care has manifested itself more 
clearly in every successive age. 

The Pentateuch was placed in the Holy of Holies 
and was enshrined under the wings of the Cherubim. 
And now, — as we shall proceed to show, — the whole 
of the Old Testament has been placed under the 
protection of the Incarnate Word. It is safe under 
the guardianship of Jesus Christ, Who is the same 
yesterday, and to-day, and for ever 6 . And thus the 
conclusion at which we have arrived — namely, that 
the whole of the Old Testament is the inspired 
"Word of God — is more firmly strengthened and 
established. 

This is what will be proved, with God's help, in 
the next discourse. 

6 Heb. xiii. 8. 



LECTURE III. 



Luke iv. 14 — 17. 



And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee : and 
there went out a fame of Him through all the region round about. 

And He taught in their Synagogues, being glorified of all. 

And He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up .- and 
as His custom was, He went into the Synagogue on the Sabbath day, 
and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto Him the 
Book of the Prophet Esaias. 

On what grounds do we receive the whole of the 
Old Testament as the inspired Word of Grod ? 

I. To this question one answer has been already 
given ; — We receive the whole of the Old Testament 
as such, on the authority of Grod Himself declared by 
the universal consent and practice of His own People, 
the Jews, to whom, as St. Paul says, were committed the 
oracles of God 1 , that is to say, who were entrusted 
with the guardianship of the Books of the Old 
Testament. 

II. Let us now proceed to show, that this testimony 
to the Inspiration of the Old Testament, is confirmed 

1 Rom. iii. I. 
D 4 



56 Testimony of Jesus Christ 

and verified by the infallible witness of our Lord and 
Saviour Jesus Christ. The Incarnate Word Him- 
self sets his own divine seal on the written Word. 
The Son of God delivers to us all the Books of the 
Old Testament as the inspired Oracles of God. He 
who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life 2 , proclaims 
that these Books show to us the Way of Salvation, 
and that they are words of Truth, and will lead all 
who receive them, with faith in Himself, to the joys 
of Life Eternal. 

Hence we may derive a firm assurance, which 
cannot be gainsaid, that the whole of the Old Tes- 
tament is the inspired Word of God. 

But, it may be asked, 

How is this proposition proved ? 

Why do we receive this testimony of Christ ? 
Why do we appeal to that testimony as a sufficient 
ground for our own belief in the Inspiration of the 
Old Testament ? 

III. In order to answer that question, we must 
begin with taking into our hands the Four Gospels, 
which profess to relate the sayings and actions of 
Jesus Christ. 

1. We can prove by external testimony, that these 
Four Gospels existed, in the same state as that in 
which they now exist, at the end of the first century 
of the Christian era, that is, nearly 1800 years ago. 
Ancient authors testify, that St. John's Gospel was 

2 John xiv. 6. 



to the Inspiration of the Old Testament. 57 

written at that time, and that he acknowledged the 
truth of the other three Gospels, — those of St. 
Matthew, St. Mark, and St. Luke, — and added his 
own Gospel, to complete the Evangelical History 3 . 

2. We can also prove by external evidence, that 
those Gospels, thus completed by St. John, were 
received, and were publicly read 4 as true Histories, 
by large communities of men, who had the best 
opportunities of testing and knowing their truth ; 
namely, by the Christians, and by the Christian 
Churches which existed in primitive times. They 
never would have read those Gospels unless they had 
believed them ; they never would have believed them 
unless those Gospels were true. 

We can show that those persons and Churches 
could not have been deceived as to the credibility of 
those Gospels. We can show that they could not 
have deceived others. They were plain simple men. 
They had no human learning, wealth or power. We 
can show that they had no earthly interest to serve 
in asserting the truth of those Gospels. The asser- 
tion of that truth exposed them to the loss of all 
worldly things. They resisted all earthly tempta- 

3 See Clemens Alexandrin. ap Euseb. vi. 15; cp. Euseb. iii. 24. 
Canon Muratorian. in Routh's Reliquiae Sacrse, iv. p. 2. Victorin. in 
Apocalyps. Bibl. Patr. Max. iii. 41. Theodor. Mopsuest. in Catena ad 
Joann. in Dr. Mill's Greek Test. p. 198. 

4 Irenseus iii. 1; iii. 11. 7—9. See Justin Martyr. Apol. i. 67- 
Cp. Westcott on the Canon of the New Test. p. 365 and p. 367 : 
" No one at present will deny that they (the Gospels, &c.) occupied 
the same position in the estimation of Christians in the time of Irenseus 
(i. e. in the second century) as they hold now." 

D 5 



58 Proof of the Truth of the Gospels, 

tions ; they endured, cheerfully endured, all priva- 
tions, sufferings, and torments for its sake 5 . They 
were stoned, beheaded, crucified, burnt, cast to the 
wild beasts. These things, and more, they suffered 
in defence of the Truth of the Four Gospels. 

3. Now mark the wonderful result. 

That very Power, the Power of Pome, Heathen 
Pome, Imperial Pome, which at first persecuted the 
Christians, and beheaded the Christians, and crucified 
the Christians, and cast the Christians to wild beasts 
for asserting the truth of the Gfospels ; that very 
Power itself, that Poman Power, that Heathen 
Power, that Imperial Power, that Power which then 
ruled the world, was itself at length convinced of the 
Truth of the Four Grospels, which were received as 
Grod's Word by the Christians. That self-same 
Poman Power, the Queen and Mistress of the World, 
was converted to the cause of the Gfospels. She 
publicly owned her conversion ; she acknowledged 

5 Especially in tbe persecution under the Roman Emperor Diocle- 
tian, a.d. 303, who endeavoured to destroy the copies of the Christian 
Scriptures, and burnt many of those writings. See Euseb. Hist. Eccl. 
viii. 2. Lactant. de mort. Persecutor, c. xii. The Christians who 
were tempted by fear to surrender copies of them to their heathen per- 
secutors were called " traditores " by their brethren. See the Passio 
of S. Felix in Baluzii Miscellanea ii. p. 77. Gieseler, Church Hist. 
§ 55 and 56. Routh, Reliquiae Sacrae, torn. v. p. 348. " The holy 
Martyrs in their Acts (collected by Ruinart, Amst. 1713, see pp. 87. 
89. 356, 357. 394) proclaim in the presence of their Judges, that the 
Holy Books received by the Christians at that time, — the Gospels and 
the other Books, — are revered by them, and are believed to be directly 
inspired, and are affectionately guarded by them unto death, and are 
not to be given up to any one." 



and consequently, of Christ's divine authority. 59 

that those whom she had put to death as Christians, 
were Martyrs to the Truth. She revered the 
memories of Peter and Paul whom she had killed. 
She who by the force of arms had made the Na- 
tions of the world to pass under her military yoke, 
humbly and meekly bowed her own head beneath 
the yoke of Christ. She changed her magnificent 
Heathen Temples into Christian Churches. And in 
those Heathen Temples, when changed into Chris- 
tian Churches, the Four Gospels of Matthew and 
Mark, Luke and John were thenceforth read as true 
and divine histories. She placed those Four Gospels 
upon Thrones in her own Council Chambers 6 ; and 
the Cross of Jesus of Nazareth, who had been cruci- 
fied by the Poman Governor Pontius Pilate, — yes, 
the Cross of Jesus of Nazareth, of obscure Nazareth, 
in despised Galilee, — dislodged the Poman Eagle 
from the military Standards of the Poman Legions, 
and was set on the Imperial Diadem of the Poman 
Masters of the world. 

These are facts as clear as the noonday sun. And 
in the face of these facts, who will venture to come 
forward and say that the Four Gospels are not true? 

4. This proposition then being admitted, that the 
Gospels are true, it follows, as a logical inference, 

6 The Emperor Constantine thus speaks in his oration to the Bishops 
at Nicsea : " The Gospels and the Apostolic writings and the oracles of 
the ancient Prophets clearly teach us what to believe of God. Let us 
receive the solution of the question before us from the divinely inspired 
words (4k t&v OeoTrueva-rwu A6ywv)." Theodoret, 1. 5. 

D 6 



60 The Old Testament in Christ's age 

that our Lord Jesus Christ did indeed perform those 
wonderful works, which He is related in the Four 
Gospels to have done ; that in the presence of great 
multitudes, — many of them His bitter enemies, — He 
healed the sick, cast out devils, raised the dead ; that 
He knew the thoughts and searched the hearts of 
men, and foretold future events ; that He rose again 
from the dead, and ascended into heaven : in a word, 
that He displayed power, knowledge, and wisdom 
infinitely greater than were ever shown by any of the 
children of men ; and that He was indeed, what He 
claimed to be, and what by His mighty and merciful 
works He proved Himself to be, — the Son of the 
Living God, the Creator and Lord of all, coequal, 
coeternal with the Father 7 . 

5. This point being clear, let us also bear in mind, — 
as is evident from external testimony, — that the Old 
Testament existed in our Lord's age, precisely in 
the same condition as that in which it exists now. 
This has been already proved in the last discourse. 

The entire Jewish Nation of that age received the 
whole of the Old Testament not as the "Word of man, 
but as the "Word of God. They guarded the sacred 
Text of the Old Testament with the most scrupulous 
fidelity and unremitting vigilance; they read the 
Old Testament publicly, Sabbath after Sabbath, 
throughout the year, in their Synagogues in almost 
all countries of the world; and, by reason of the 

7 John viii. 58 ; x. 30. 



the same as the Old Testament in our age. 61 

multiplication of copies of the Original and of Trans- 
lations, that were requisite for this general public 
reading of the Old Testament in every clime, it was 
not possible for any one to tamper with the Text of 
the Old Testament, or to make any change in it, 
either by interpolation or mutilation. 

6. Such was the state of things before Christ's 
coming, and at His coming into the world. And 
ever since that time, the Text of the Old Testament 
has been guarded by the twofold, independent, anta- 
gonistic custody of the Jewish Synagogue and of 
the Christian Church ; so that we may confidently 
say, that the Old Testament which is now read in 
the Churches of England is the same as the Old 
Testament which was read in the Jewish Synagogues 
of our Lord's age. The Old Testament in our hands 
is precisely the same as the Old Testament which 
was in the hands of Jesus Christ. 

7. Contemplate therefore Jesus Christ holding in 
His hands the Old Testament. How did He treat 
it? He "Who proved by His wonderful deeds and 
words that He was far wiser than all the children of 
men, how did He treat the Old Testament? Did 
He treat it as "a common book?" Did He say 
that some parts of it are inspired, and other parts 
are not inspired ? Did He say that some portions of 
it are genuine, and other portions are forged ? Did 
He say that some of its contents are true, and that 
others are false ? 

The answer to these questions is easy. The Jews 



62 Jesus Christ acknowledged all the Old Testament 

guarded the Books of the Old Testament. They 
read these Books in their Synagogues every Sab- 
bath, and they venerated all those Books, — they 
revered every part of those Books, — as true, as 
genuine, and as given by the inspiration of God 8 . 

To quote the words of their own writer, Josephus 9 , 
it was " a principle innate in every Jew to regard 
those Books as oracles of God, and to cleave to them, 
yea, and to die gladly for them." 

Now, how did our Blessed Lord treat this their 
national belief in the Inspiration of the Old Testa- 
ment ? 

Did He censure the Jews for ascribing the Old 
Testament to God ? Did He blame them for accepting 
every part of it as God's Word ? If the Old Testa- 
ment is merely the word of man, or if any portion of 
it is false, if any part of it is a forgery, Christ the 
Son of God would have blamed those who attributed 
it to God. He Who was so zealous of His Father's 
honour that He drove the buyers and sellers from 
the outer courts of His Father's House *, would have 
rebuked those who ascribed the erring and illusory 
words of fallible and sinful man to the God of all 
Wisdom and Truth. The Son of God would have 
resented such an ascription ; He would have de- 

8 It is altogether a false notion, that the Jews of our Lord's age re- 
garded some Books of the Old Testament as possessing a higher degree 
of inspiration than others. The theory of degrees of inspiration is a 
fiction of a later date. Cp. Dr. W. Lee on Inspiration, Appendix C. 

9 See above, p. 38. 

1 Matt. xxi. 10. Mark xi. 15. Luke xix. 45. John ii. 15. 



to be given by Inspiration of God. 63 

nounced such an imputation, as a profane outrage 
and insult against His awful majesty. He would 
not have connived at it. He would not have made 
Himself an accomplice with those who put forth 
counterfeit coin in the Name of the King of kings. 
He would not have abetted those who stamped that 
adulterated coinage with the Divine image and super- 
scription, and circulated it throughout the world. 

But hear what the Gfospels relate of Christ. 

Take, for instance, the chapter to which we have 
referred at the beginning of this discourse — the 
fourth chapter of St. Luke's Gospel. It begins with 
the history of the Temptation. There our Lord de- 
feats the Tempter with the sword of the Spirit, which is 
the Word of God 2 . Thrice Satan assails Him, and 
thrice Christ foils him with this weapon, "It is 
written 3 ." The Devil leaveth Him. Our Lord 
works miracles : and preaches in the Synagogues of 
Galilee. He comes to Nazareth. As His custom 
was, He went into the Synagogue on the Sabbath Day. 
He there stood up to read. In those Synagogues the 
Books of the Old Testament were delivered to Him as 
the oracles of God, and He received them as such. 
" To-day," He said, " is this Scripture fulfilled in your 
ears." On another occasion He said, It is easier for 
heaven and earth to pass than one tittle of the Law 
to fail 4 . Who then will venture to say that the 
Pentateuch is blemished with error? And again, 

2 Eph. vi. 14. 3 Luke iv. 4. 8. 12. 

4 Luke xvi. 17. Cp. Matt. v. 18. 



64 Jesus Christ commands all men to receive 

He declared that the Scripture cannot be broken*. 
Who then will assert that it is weak and fragile ? 
The Son of Grod, when on earth, joined with the 
Jews, Sabbath after Sabbath, in their public worship ; 
He took part with them in reading and expounding 
the Scriptures of the Old Testament as the inspired 
Word of God. Thus He declared that their belief in 
its Inspiration is true. He required all to receive it. 

8. To give, if possible, greater solemnity to this 
divine declaration, Christ put it into the mouth of the 
Father of the faithful, Abraham, the Representative of 
all true Israelites ; He utters it by the voice of Abra- 
ham, removed from this world, and dwelling in the 
blessed society of the spirits of the departed ; of Moses, 
and David, and Isaiah, and all the Prophets. In the 
parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man, in which our 
Lord uplifts the veil which separates this world from 
the world of spirits, Christ reveals to us Abraham, 
and He makes Abraham speak that remarkable 
speech, They have Moses and the Prophets, let them 
hear them. If they hear not Moses and the Prophets, 
neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the 
dead 6 . Awfully solemn words, uttered by the Lord 
of Life, speaking by Abraham, the Friend of God. 

They have Moses and the Prophets. Who therefore 
of us, that entertains a blessed hope that his own 
spirit may be carried by Angels at his own death 
into Abraham's bosom, and be there in peace with 

5 Kvdrivai, John x. 35. 6 Luke xvi. 29. 31. 



all the Old Testament as the inspired Word of God. 65 

those who have departed in the true faith and fear of 
God, will venture to deny that the Books which the 
Jews regarded as the Books of Moses and the 
Prophets, are not what they believed them to be, — 
true, genuine, and divine ? 

9. Yet more, after that the Son of Gfod Himself 
had overcome Death, and when, on the evening of 
His glorious Resurrection, He walked with the two 
disciples to Emmaus, and when afterwards He 
appeared to His assembled Apostles, He appealed to 
the Books of the Old Testament as true, and as 
inspired by God; Beginning at Moses and all the 
Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures 
the things concerning Himself. And He said, These 
are the words which I spake unto you, that all things 
must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses, 
and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning Me 8 . 

Thus then our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has 
pronounced His divine verdict in behalf of the Truth, 
the Integrity, and Inspiration of the Old Testament. 
And this divine verdict, observe, applies to every 
part of the Old Testament. It covers the whole ; it 
applies to every portion of all those Books which the 
Jews received as Holy Scripture. 

The Son of God delivers to us the whole of the 
Old Testament, and commands all men to receive the 
whole as the Word of the Living God. 

10. Accordingly we find that His Holy Apostles, 
being taught by Him, and by the Holy Spirit which 

7 Luke xxiv. 27. 8 Luke xxiv. 44. 



6Q Why we do not receive the Apocrypha 

He sent down from heaven, declared that the Old 
Testament is inspired by Grod. Thus St. Peter 
speaks not only the opinion of his own Nation, but 
proclaims the judgment of Christ, when he says of 
the Hebrew Prophets, that their prophecy came not 
by the will of man, but that they spake what they 
spake, being borne along by the Holy Ghost 9 ; and 
St. Paul reminds Timothy that the Scriptures which 
he had known from his childhood are holy, and are 
the 1 writings which are able to make him wise unto 
salvation through faith that is in Christ Jesus ; 
and he adds that every Scripture — that is, every part 
of Scripture — is given by inspiration of God, or as the 
words signify, is filled with the breath of God 2 . 

IV . Here we may observe, in passing, that we have 
a ready answer for those who ask of us a reason, why 
we, of the Church of England, cannot agree with the 
Church of Pome in receiving the Apocrypha as in- 
spired. We read some of the Apocrypha as useful and 
wholesome "for example of life and instruction of 
manners 3 ," but we receive none of it as inspired. 
And thus we mark the essential difference that sub- 
sists between all human writings, — however excellent, 

9 2 Pet. i. 21. 

1 ra dvudfieua, observe the definitive Article, 2 Tim. iii. 15. 

2 The testimonies of the Ancient Fathers of the Church, in succes- 
sion after the Apostles,, witnesses to the Inspiration of the New Testa- 
ment, as well as the Old, may be seen collected by Dr. Routh, Reliquiae 
Sacrse, vol. v. pp. 336 — 353, and by the Rev. B. F. Westcott, Introduc- 
tion to the Study of the Gospels, pp. 383—418. 

3 Thirty-nine Articles, Art. VI. 



as part of the inspired Word of God. 67 

—and the Holy Scriptures, which are given by in- 
spiration of God. 

But the Church of Borne, at the Council of Trent 
in the sixteenth century (a.d. 1546), passed a decree 
affirming that the Apocryphal Books (such as Tobit, 
Judith, the Two Books of Maccabees) are of equal 
authority with the Books of Moses and the Prophets, 
and the rest of the Old Testament. She pronounced 
an anathema, or curse, on all who do not receive those 
Apocryphal Books as of equal authority with them. 

What do we say to this ? We say that those 
Apocryphal Books existed before the Son of God 
came down from heaven ; and that they were never 
received by the Ancient Hebrew Church as inspired, 
and that they were never received as such by Jesus 
Christ. We receive the Old Testament, — neither 
more nor less, — which was received by Jesus Christ. 
Therefore the words of Rome, directed against us, 
are words spoken against Christ. We care not 
therefore for her anathemas, except for her sake. For 
we know from St. Paul, that no man speaking by the 
Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed 4 ; and that our 
love for Christ is to be shown by hearkening to His 
Word ; and that Whosoever loveth not the Lord Jesus 
Christ, says the same Apostle, let him be anathema 5 . 

Y. Let us now apply these things to ourselves and 
to the circumstances of our own times. 

4 1 Cor. xii. 3. s 1 Cor. xvi. 22. 



68 Appeal to the authority of Christ, 

1. Is the Old Testament true ? Is it from heaven ? 
Is it all true ? Is it all inspired ? These questions 
are now current among us. Books are put into our 
hands, written, it would seem, by shrewd men, dis- 
tinguished by literary attainments, and by philo- 
sophic calmness and research, who appear to have 
inquired with candour and impartiality into the 
evidences of the Truth and Inspiration of the Old 
Testament, and not to have been convinced that it is 
of divine origin. We hear it alleged by some, that 
it can be shown from recent investigations of Geolo- 
gists, that the world must have existed before the 
date assigned to the creation by the Book of Genesis. 
We hear it argued by others, who seem to be pro- 
ficients in the study of Morals and Metaphysics, that 
to believe all mankind to have been involved in guilt 
by the sin of Adam and Eve, is hardly consistent 
with the reverence due to the Justice and Be- 
nevolence of God : and that it is derogatory to His 
Wisdom and Foresight, to suppose that He should 
have destroyed His own work of Creation by the 
general devastation of the Flood. 

What, they ask, are we to say of such seemingly 
strange and incredible narratives as those which are 
found in the Old Testament, concerning the speaking 
of Balaam's ass, and the coming forth of the 
Prophet Jonah from the whale's belly after three 
days ? What are we to think of these things ? 

Again, it is said by some persons of high reputa- 
tion among us, reviving the sceptical objections of 



in answer to Sceptical objections. 69 

Porphyry 6 which were exploded by S. Jerome 7 
fourteen hundred years ago, that the prophecies of 
Daniel 8 bear marks of having been composed after 
the events which they profess to foretell, — and, in 
fact, are no prophecies at all. 

2. To those who may make these, and all such 
allegations as these, impugning the Truth, Genuine- 
ness, or Inspiration of the Old Testament, we 
would put this question, — Whom shall we believe,— 
you, or Jesus Christ ? 

You allege, that there are certain things in the 
Old Testament, which you cannot reconcile with the 
results of your physical researches, or with your 
moral and metaphysical theories ; and you therefore 
reject the Old Testament, and require us to surrender 
it in deference to your authority. 

But in this great question — in this most mo- 
mentous question of eternal life or eternal death — we 
ask again, Whom shall we believe, whom shall we 
follow ? You, or Jesus Christ ? Shall we imagine 
that you, the creatures of a day, have a clearer 
insight into the Laws of Nature, than He who made 
the worlds 9 , and who controlled the Laws of Nature 
by the utterance of a single word ? Shall we suppose 



6 And of some Jews since our Lord's age, who perceive that the 
Messiah must be come, if Daniel is a Prophet. See Hottinger, 
Thesaur. Philol. p. 504. 

7 See S. Jerome, Prsefat. in Danielem, torn. hi. p. 1071, ed. Benedict. 
Paris, 1704. 

8 " Essays and Reviews," pp. 69. 76. 

9 John i. 3. Heb. i. 2. 



70 Appeal from Sceptics to Christ. 

that you have more knowledge of the history and 
structure of the Universe, than He who swayed the 
Elements, and walked on the Sea, and calmed the 
Storm, and made the Earth give up her dead, and 
mounted on the clouds of Heaven ? Shall we listen 
to those metaphysical theorists, who would have us 
give up the Old Testament, which was received as a 
Divine Book by Him who read the heart, and knew 
what was in man, and foretold things to come ? 
Shall we give credence to those Moralists, who reject 
the Old Testament, which was acknowledged to be 
God's Word by that Divine Teacher of Moral Virtue 
who preached the Sermon on the Mount ; and whose 
Religion, wherever it has been received, has emanci- 
pated the Slave, and beautified Marriage, and has 
given a grace and dignity to Woman, which she never 
before possessed since she was Eve in Paradise, and 
has opened a pure well-spring of blessing and of joy 
in every Christian family, and prepares its members, 
by the discipline of love on earth, for the life of 
angels in heaven ? 

In what appertains to the Word of God let us 
not pretend to be wiser than the Son of God. Let 
us not reject a single iota of the Old Testa- 
ment, with frail and fallible children of men, but 
reverently receive the whole with the Son of 
God. 

He has delivered to us the Old Testament : He 
who is now enthroned in glory, commands us to 
receive it. Alas ! for those who refuse Him that 



Moral uses of difficulties in Scripture. 71 

speaketh from heaven \ For He has warned us that 
he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and 
he who believeth not shall be damned 2 . Inexpressi- 
bly awful words, uttered by the Judge of all, who 
hath the Keys of Hell and Death 3 . He will one day 
be revealed in flaming fire taking vengeance on them 
that obey not the Gospel 4 . And then it will be seen 
by all, and it will be felt by the children of dark- 
ness, that while He is infinite in mercy to all who 
believe and obey Him, yet to all who do not believe 
Him, our God is a consuming fire 5 . 

3. Looking, then, to Christ holding the New Tes- 
tament in His hands, we are not staggered by any 
difficulties in it. We expect to find some difficulties 
in a Revelation from a Being like God to such a 
creature as man. We even rejoice in these diffi- 
culties. We do not fear them as enemies, but 
welcome them as allies, and embrace them as friends ; 
for they are occasions of our growth in grace. They 
exercise our humility. They are the leaves and flowers, 
of which our heavenly crown is woven. They remind 
us of our own weakness and ignorance, and of the 
power and wisdom of Christ. They send us to Him, 
and to the Grospel. They make us to go and sit down 
as little children at the feet of Jesus Christ. 

4. Thus, for instance, the history of Balaam. It 
may be a difficulty to some. But it will remind 



1 Heb. xii. 25. 2 Mark xiv. 16. 3 Rev. i. 18. 

4 2 Thess. i. 7- 5 Heb. xii. 29. 



72 History of Balaam ; Jonah in the whale's belli/. 

every Christian reader, who really loves his Saviour, 
that the Apostle of Christ, St. Peter, who was 
enabled by Christ to heal the sick, and raise the 
dead, and to speak with tongues 6 , and to discern the 
spirits, as in the case of Ananias 7 , and to foretell the 
future, has referred to the history of Balaam in the 
second chapter of his second Epistle. The Apostle 
St. Peter accepts the history of Balaam, and does 
not rationalize it away, but explains its inner 
meaning, and reminds us how by that signal ex- 
ample, God showed, that even the most despised of 
the brute creatures themselves are wiser and more 
clear-sighted than a disobedient Prophet, or a sceptical 
Philosopher. The dumb ass speaking with man's 
voice, says the Apostle, forbad the madness of the 
Prophet*. 

5. Thus again as to the history of Jonah in the 
whale's belly. It may be a difficulty with some ; but 
in reading that history every Christian student, who 
believes and adores his Blessed Redeemer, will recol- 
lect, that Jesus Christ has adopted and authenticated 
that history, and has applied and appropriated it to 
Himself. As Jonas was three days and three nights in 
the whale's belly, so (says Christ) shall the Son of Man 
be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth °. 
The Christian reader will observe, that Christ's 
reference to the history of Jonah is interwoven with 
Christ's prophecy concerning Himself ; and he will 

6 Acts ii. 4; iii. 7; ix. 34. 40. 7 Acts v. 3. 

8 2 Pet, ii. 16. 9 Matt. xii. 40. 



Book of Daniel. 73 

remember that Christ's word was proved to be true 
by the fulfilment of that prophecy. Christ was 
three days and three nights in the heart of the 
earth ; and He then raised Himself. Thus Christ's 
authorization of Jonah's history is verified by the 
fulfilment of Christ's prophecy concerning Himself, 
of Whom Jonah was a type. Let us not read 
the history of Jonah by the feeble glimmerings 
of a purblind sciolism, but by the clear light of 
Christ's glorious Gospel, and we shall see the proof 
of its truth in His burial and resurrection. Thus 
these Scriptural difficulties are dissolved by a spiritual 
alchymy in the crucible of faith. 

6. Once more : the unbeliever may allege that 
the prophecies of Daniel correspond so minutely 
with the events that they profess to predict that 
they must be posterior to those events. A strange 
allegation ! As if there were any past or future with 
God ! As if He, who spake by the Prophets, does 
not see all things present at once. It is enough for 
us to know that the Book of Daniel, as it is in our 
hands now, was in the hands of the Jewish nation of 
our Lord's age ; and was received by them as 
inspired *; and that what they received as inspired 
was also received as such by Jesus Christ. Indeed 

1 See the remarkable testimony of the Jewish historian Josephus, 
Antiquities, book x. chapters 10 — 12. See also Maimonides, More 
Nevochim, ii. 45, who says, "Daniel, the Psalms, &c., are all written 
by the Holy Spirit." How different is this language, and that of 
Christ, from the language of " Essays and Reviews," where it is said 
(p« 77) that " the current error," as to the Book of Daniel, " is dis> 
creditable " to divines. 



74 Christians enjoy greater advantages than the Hebrews, 
even with regard to the Hebrew Scriptures. 

He expressly owns Daniel as a prophet. " When ye 
shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by 
Daniel the Prophet 2 ." — Daniel the Prophet may be 
no Prophet to the unbeliever; the book of Daniel 
may be a forgery to the sceptic of the nineteenth 
century; but to us, my Christian friends, let him 
be Daniel the Prophet ; for he was Daniel the 
Prophet to his own nation, he was Daniel the 
Prophet to Jesus Christ. 

VI. Let us here acknowledge our own spiritual 
privileges, and our cause for thankfulness to God. 
The Jews of old were greatly favoured by Him, but 
how much more favoured are we ! " What advan- 
tage hath the Jew ?" asks the Apostle. " Much every 
way," he replies, "chiefly because unto them were 
committed the oracles of God." ' And may we not 
much more say, "What advantage hath the Chris- 
tian ? Much every way ;" even more than the Jew. 
For we have a stronger assurance of the Divine 
Inspiration of the Hebrew Scriptures than even the 
Hebrews themselves had. They received the Old 
Testament as inspired, on the testimony of their fore- 
fathers, but it is delivered to us, as inspired, by 
Jesus Christ Himself. Here is an inexpressible com- 
fort ; here indeed is a joyful assurance, in days like 
these, of rebuke and blasphemy. Here we have hope 
and peace in the sorrows of life, and in the hour of 
death. Our belief in the Truth and Inspiration of 

2 Matt. xxiv. 15. Mark xiii. 14. Dan. ix. 27; xii. 11. 



Use of difficulties in Holy Scripture. 75 

the Old Testament, yes, of the whole of the Old Testa- 
ment, rests on a foundation that can never be shaken. 
It rests on the testimony of Christ. Therefore we 
may dwell safely, and defy the storms raging around 
us. Let the rain descend; let the floods of Unbe- 
lief come, and the winds of false Doctrine blow, and 
beat upon our house ; it will not fall, for it is built 
upon a Rock 3 . It is built upon the Rock of Ages 4 ; 
it is built upon Jesus Christ. 

VII. Finally, may we not say, that the written 
"Word of God is like the Incarnate Word Himself, — 
set for the fall, and also for the rising of many in Israel , 
and for a sign that shall be spoken against 5 ? 

Holy Scripture is set for our moral probation, which 
supposes trial and difficulty. It exhibits us to men 
and angels as we are. It displays what manner of 
spirit tve are of 6 . It proves, whether we have those 
moral habits and tempers of mind, and those disposi- 
tions of meekness and docility, and readiness to weigh 
evidence with candour and fairness, without which 
no man is fit for the kingdom of God 7 . 

Holy Scripture is set for our fall,— if, with a partial 
eye to difficulties in single texts taken by themselves, 
and without due regard to the general scope of the 
whole, and to the evidence of its Truth and Inspira- 
tion, we take occasion to cavil at its contents, and 
deny its divine origin and authority. 

But, on the other hand, thanks be to God, it is 

3 Matt. vii. 24, 25. 4 Isa. xxvi. 4. 5 Luke ii. 34. 

6 Luke ix. 55. 7 Luke ix. 62. 

E 2 



76 Those difficulties will he cleared away from the eyes of 
those who use them aright. 

also set for our rising, — for our rising to heavenly 

glory, — if we use those difficulties aright ; and are 

led thereby to acknowledge the weakness of our own 

faculties in their present state, and our consequent 

need of divine grace ; and to exercise humility, and 

to thank God for what is perfectly clear in Holy 

Scripture ; and to look forward with faith and hope 

to that blessed time, when all those difficulties will be 

dispersed, and the film and mist, which now cloud 

our spiritual vision, will be purged away ; and we 

shall no longer see, as now, through a glass darkly, 

but shall see face to face, and know even as we are 

known- s , 

8 1 Cor. xiii. 12. 



LECTURE IY. 



Luke xi. 33. 



No man, when he hath lighted a candle, putteth it in a secret 
place, neither under a bushel, but on a candlestick that they which 
come in may see the light x . 

We have been engaged in considering, what the 

reasons are for belief in the Inspiration of the Old 

Testament. 

I. The subject now proposed for examination is ; — 
On what grounds do we receive the New Testament 

as the Inspired Word of God ? 

1. God is One, and Everlasting ; and if the New 
Testament is from Him, we may reasonably antici- 
pate, that the method employed by Him for assuring 
us of the Inspiration of the New Testament, will, 
as far as the difference of circumstances allows, be 
similar to that plan by which He has assured us of 
the Inspiration of the Old. 

2. When we were asked for the reasons of our 
belief in the Inspiration of the Old Testament, our 
answer was, — 

1 Cp. Matt. v. 15. Mark iv. 21. Luke viii. 16. 
E 3 



78 What are the grounds for belief 

First, we receive the Old Testament on the autho- 
rity of God Himself, speaking by the universal con- 
sent and practice of the Hebrew Nation, to which, as 
the Apostle says, were committed the Oracles of God 2 . 

Next we proceeded to show, that when the Son of 
God Himself came down from heaven, and dwelt 
among us, He acknowledged the truth of that 
belief in the Inspiration of the Old Testament. Our 
Blessed Lord declared His own concurrence in, and 
pronounced His divine approval of, this consent and 
practice of the Hebrew Nation, receiving all the 
Books of the Old Testament, as set apart from all 
other Yolumes then existing in the world, and as 
holy and divine Writings, dictated by the Spirit of 
God. 

Therefore we affirm, that the Old Testament comes 
to us ministerially and instrumentally through the 
ancient Jewish Church ; but it comes to us effectually 
and virtually from the hands of Jesus Christ. 

3. Our present assertion is, that Almighty God 
has employed similar means for assuring us of the 
Inspiration of the New Testament. 

We affirm that the New Testament comes to us, — 
through the instrumentality of the Christian Church, 
—its divinely appointed Guardian and Keeper, — but 
it comes to us principally and originally from Jesus 
Christ. 

We look up to heaven with the eye of Faith, and 

2 Rom. iii. 1, 2. 



in the Inspiration of the Neio Testament ? 79 

we see Jesus Christ, the Incarnate "Word, enthroned 
there in His glorious Majesty, and holding in His 
hands the Old and New Testaments, and delivering 
to us both Testaments, as the Word of the Living 
God. 

4. In order to show the soundness of this belief, 
we must revert to a proposition already proved in a 
previous discourse, namely, that the Four Gospels are 
true 3 . 

That the Four Gospels are true, has been shown 
from the facts, that the Gospels were publicly 
read in Christian Churches in primitive times ; and 
that they who read them could not have been 
deceived as to their veracity ; and that they died 
gladly in defence of their truth : and that eventually 
the Roman Empire, which had at first persecuted 
the Christians for belief in the Gospels, was itself 
converted to Christianity, and received the Gospels 
as true. 

II. The truth of the Gospels being established, it 
follows that the Son of God uttered those sayings 
which He is related in the Gospels to have spoken. 

1. Among the declarations of Christ recorded in 
the Gospels, we find the following : Upon this Rock 
I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not 
prevail against it *. Lo, I am with you alway, even 
unto the end of the world 5 . Christ promised to send 
the Holy Spirit to His disciples, to lead them into all 

See above, pp. 56—59. * Matt. xvi. 18. 5 Matt, xxviii. 20. 

E 4 



SO Our Lord promised to give supernatural Inspiration 
to His disciples ; 

truth, and to abide tvith them for ever. These things 
have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you ; but 
the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the 
Father will send in My name, He shall teach you all 
things, and bring all things to your remembrance, what- 
soever I have said unto you 6 . And, When He, the 
Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth : 
for He shall not speak of Himself ; but whatsoever He 
shall hear, that shall He speak, and He will show you 
things to come 7 . I will pray the Father, and He will 
give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you 
for ever, even the Spirit of Truth 8 . And again, I will 
give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries 
shall not be able to gainsay nor resist 9 . 

The fulfilment of these promises of Christ is 
avouched in the history of the Acts of the Apostles a , 
the truth of which is proved by its reception and 
public reading in the primitive^Churches of Christen- 
dom. 

2. Hence we may conclude, that Christ enabled His 
Apostles and Evangelists to reveal supernatural mys- 
teries ; and that the words which they have delivered to 
the Church for her perpetual instruction in divine 
truth, and which have been read as such in her 
public assemblies from their age until now, are not 
words which man's wisdom teacheth, but ivhich the 
Holy Ghost teacheth 2 . 

f - John xiv. 25, 20. ' John xvi. 13. 

8 John xiv. 16. 9 Luke xxi. 15. 

1 Acts ii. 4. 2 1 Cor. ii. 13. 



and He instituted the Church as a Witness of the 81 
Inspiration of the Scriptures written oy them. 

3. Next, we may deduce from Christ's words just 
rehearsed, this inference — that He has instituted in 
the world a visible Society, called His Church, to 
which He has promised His perpetual presence and 
His Spirit, to lead it into all truth, and to abide with 
it unto the end. 

Accordingly, we find that the Apostle St. Paul, 
haying regard to Christ's promise of His continual 
presence in His Church, calls her His Body ; and 
meditating on His love to His Church, and her dear- 
ness to Him, he speaks of her as united to Christ in 
spiritual wedlock 3 ; and forasmuch as she is quick- 
ened, informed, and taught by Christ's Spirit dwell- 
ing in her, and publishing by her, as by a living 
organ, His will and word, the Apostle says, that she 
is the Church of the Living God, the Pillar and Ground 
of the Truth \ 

"We cannot say with some persons, that we receive 
the Scriptures as divine because we know loho their 
writers were, and that they were good men full of 
the Holy Ghost, and that therefore whatever they 
wrote must be inspired of Gfod. 

The truth is, we do not know, by whom some of 
the Books of Scripture were written 5 ; and this 

* Eph. v. 23—32. * 1 Tim. iii. 15. 

5 E. g. the Books of Job, Judges, and others in the Old Testament. 
The Epistle to the Hebrews in the New Testament was, in all proba- 
bility, written by St. Paul; but its inspiration is not only probable, 
but certain : because it is received, as inspired, by the Universal Church 
of God. 

Besides, the authorship of some smaller portions of the Gospels may 

E 5 



82 Analogy in the means used by Almighty God 

uncertainty seems to have been intended to serve a 
providential purpose, in order that we might not 
attribute the authority of the Scriptures to the men 
by whose instrumentality they were written, but to 
God who wrote the Scriptures by their hands. 

"We receive the Books of Holy Scripture on the 
testimony of Christ, speaking in His Church. 

III. One of the principal offices of the Church of 
God, ever since Scripture was written, has been to 
guard Scripture, and to read it openly and habitually 
to the people, and to authenticate it as God's Word 6 . 

1. "We find, that as soon as the first Books of 
Scripture — namely, the Books of Moses — were written, 
they were deposited by God's command for safe 
custody, near the Ark, in the Holy of Holies ; and 
that they were ordered to be read publicly at the 
Feast of Tabernacles as His Holy Word 7 . 

These commands of God were the first beginnings 
of a great and comprehensive Plan for the safe 
preservation of the Holy Scriptures, and for their 
publication to the world, and for the attestation of 
their divine origin and authority. 

The ancient Hebrew Church read the Old Testa- 
ment in the Synagogues, Sabbath after Sabbath, year 
after year, and century after century, in all parts of 



be matter of doubt : and this very circumstance brings out more clearly 
the grounds on which our belief in their Inspiration rests. The author 
may here be allowed to refer to his notes on Mark xvi. 9 — 20, and on 
John vii. 53; viii. I— 11. 

6 Cp. Hooker, V. xxii. 2. 7 See above, pp. 43—45. 



for preserving and authenticating both Testaments. 83 

the world. It read the Old Testament as inspired by 
God. 

When the Son of God Himself came down from 
heaven, He took part, as we have already seen 8 , in 
this public reading of the Old Testament in the 
Hebrew Synagogues; He acknowledged the Old 
Testament, which was there read, to be what the 
ancient Hebrew Church believed and testified it to 
be, — the unerring "Word of God. 

2. This providential arrangement for the guardian- 
ship and authentication of God's Word, by means of 
public Reading, was maintained and enlarged, from 
the time of the writing of the first Books of the Old 
Testament until Christ's First Advent; and ever 
since that time it has been growing and expanding 
itself throughout the world by the planting and pro- 
pagation of Christian Churches in distant lands ; and 
it will continue to extend itself by the preaching of 
the Gospel as a witness unto all Nations even unto the 
end 9 , when Christ will come again to judge the 
World. 

3. This divinely-instituted plan of public Bead- 
ing comprehends within its range the New Testament, 
as well as the Old ; and places the New Testament on 
the same footing with the Old. 

This will appear from the history of the publica- 
tion and preservation of the New Testament. 

4. One of the most remarkable portions of the 

8 See above pp. 61 — 65. 9 Matt. xxiv. 14. 

E 6 



Sri Purposes served by the primitive public Beading 

New Testament in this particular respect, is that 
which we have been reading in the Church during 
the last week, namely, the First and Second Epistles 
of St. Paul to the Church of Thessalonica. 

These two Epistles were the first written of all 
St. Paul's Epistles, and were among the first written 
of all the Books of the New Testament. 

It is observable, that in the first of these two 
Epistles to the Thessalonians, St. Paul gives a solemn 
injunction, as follows : i" charge, or adjure you, by the 
Lord, thai this Epistle be read unto all the holy bre- 
thren 10 . That Epistle was to be read openly in the 
Church. And in another Epistle, — that to the Co- 
lossians, — St Paul takes for granted that it would be 
read in the Church. He thus speaks : Wlien this 
Epistle is read among you, cause that it be read also 
in the Church of the Laodiceans 1 . 

"VYhat St. Paul required to be done to his own 
Epistles, was done to all the Books of the New Testa- 
ment. They were received and read openly and 
habitually on every Lord's Day, year after year and 
century after century, in Christian Churches, from 
primitive times 2 . 

5. And with what feelings were they received and 
read? Were they regarded as common writings? 
No : certainly not. They were received and read as 
the Word of God. They were reverently received 
as such ; they were received and read as Holy Scrip- 

>° 1 Thess. v. 27- ] Col. iv. 16. 2 See above, pp. 82, 83. 



of the Books of the New Testament. 85 

ture 3 ; they were read simultaneously with the Books 
of the Old Testament. They were read as equally 
inspired with the Books of Moses and the Prophets 4 , 
which had been received by Jesus Christ Himself, as 
the Word of the Living God. 

Thus the Church of God bore witness to them, 
and testified that they are the Oracles of God 5 . 

6. Let us also consider this. The writers of the 
New Testament lay claim to Inspiration. Thus St. 
Paul says to the Corinthians, I trow 6 that I have the 
Spirit of God 7 . And, We speak not in wards which 
man's wisdom teacheth, but ivhich the Holy Ghost 
teacheth 8 . And he appeals to his miracles wrought 
among them in proof of his Inspiration. Truly the 
signs of an Apostle toere wrought among you in all 
patience, in signs, and iconders, and mighty deeds 9 . 

The Epistles of St. Paul, in which these words 
occur, contain severe reprehensions of those to whom 
these Epistles were sent. He reproves them as carnal, 
as babes in Christ, and yet puffed up \ Those persons 
were proud of their intellectual and spiritual gifts; 

s It is remarkable that the word TpcupT), which simply means writing, 
js reserved and appropriated in the New Testament (where it occurs 
fifty times) to the sacred writings, i.e. to the Holy Scriptures ; and 
marks the separation of the Scriptures from all " common books/' 
indeed, from all other writings in the world. 

* See Bingham, Antiquities, XIV. ch. iii. 

5 Cp. Hooker, V. xxii. 2 : " The reading of the Word of God in open 
audience is the plainest evidence we have of the Church's assent and 
acknowledgment that it is His Word." 

6 5o/cw. * 1 Cor. vii. 40. 
8 1 Cor. ii. 13. 9 2 Cor. xii. 12. 
1 1 Cor. iii. 1—3; v. 2. 



86 Some smaller portions of the New Testament were 
not received at once ly all Churches. 

and the reception of those Epistles involved a censure 
on themselves ; and they would never have received 
those Epistles as inspired, unless they had been con- 
vinced, that the claims of the writer to Inspiration 
were true. 

The reception of all the Books of the New Testa- 
ment as of equally divine authority, is a proof of 
their Inspiration. 

TV. But it may be asked, — 

Are there not some portions of the New Testament 
which were not at first received universally as the 
inspired Word of God ? 

Yes, certainly there are. 

The whole primitive Church received the Four 
Gfospels, and the Acts of the Apostles, the Thirteen 
Epistles which bear the name of St. Paul, and the 
First Epistle of St. Peter and of St. John. These 
Books were universally received at once by all 
Christendom. 

But some few minor parts of the New Testament 
there are, concerning which some particular Churches 
at first suspended their judgment. 

Such, for instance, was the Second Epistle of St. 
Peter. 

Some Churches waited for a time, and did not 
pronounce judgment upon that Epistle, till they were 
fully persuaded of its genuineness and inspiration. 
But, after careful examination, they received it ; and 
eventually all Churches in Christendom received all 
the Books of the New Testament as the Word of God. 



Inferences to he derived from the partial non-reception, 87 
and subsequent universal reception, of those portions. 

This very fact, that some of the Books of the New 
Testament were not received at first, is of great 
value. For it proves the scrupulous care, with which 
those Books were examined^ before they were received 
by the Church ; and the fact also, that those Books, 
concerning which some Churches doubted at first, 
were at length received by all Churches, proves that 
they were rightly received. 

V. To this testimony of the Catholic Church of 
God, receiving and reading the whole of the New 
Testament, we appeal in support of our own belief 
that all and every part of it is the Word of God. 

1. Let us here obviate an objection. 

Let no one imagine, that in speaking of the Catholic 
Church we mean the Church of Rome ; or that in 
appealing to the testimony of the Church Catholic in 
this matter, we are appealing to the testimony of the 
Roman Church. No. The Roman Church is not 
the Catholic Church. The Church of Rome is a 
part, but, in many respects, a very unsound part, of 
the Catholic Church. 

In her Canon of the Old Testament, she displays 
her own unsoundness, by receiving as inspired the 
Apocrypha 2 ; which was never received as such by the 
Ancient Hebrew Church, nor by Jesus Christ, the 
Head of the Universal Church, nor by His Holy 
Apostles, nor by the Catholic Church \ 

With regard to the New Testament, we receive as 

2 See above, pp. 66, 67. 

3 As is proved by Bp. Cosin in his Scholastical History of the 



88 The Church does not give authority to Scripture. 

inspired Scripture the same Books as the Church of 
Home does. It is true there is no difference between 
her and us on this point. Happily, the difference is 
limited to the Books of the Old Testament ; and there 
Christ Himself decides the controversy by His own 
direct testimony. And we rest on that. 

As to the New Testament, we receive the same 
Books as the Church of Rome does ; but we do not 
receive them on her authority. We receive them on 
the authority of Christ, speaking to us by the Catholic, 
or Universal, Church. 

2. Again ; let it not be supposed, that we are of 
opinion with some in the Church of Borne 4 , that 
the Church can give authority to Scripture. No ; 
the authority of Scripture comes from God, and God 
alone. The light is not from the Candlestick, but 
from the Candles ; it is not from the Church, but 
from the Scriptures, which are the Candles that 
Christ has lighted, and set in the Church. But 
the Church testifies to the divine authority of Scrip- 
ture. John the Baptist was a shining light 5 , and 
bore witness to Christ. That witness was true ; for 
John was full of the Holy Ghost 6 Who spake by him. 
But John did not give any authority to Christ. So 
the Church bears testimony to Scripture, and we 



Canon of the Scripture, Lond. 1657, 1672, 1683; or in vol. iii. of his 
Works, Oxford, 1849. 

4 Whose assertions to this effect may be seen in the Author's 
volume on the Canon of Scripture, p. 15. 

5 John v. 35. Lukei. 15. 



Why we receive the witness of the Church Universal 89 
to the Inspiration of Scripture. 

appeal to that testimony as true : we appeal to it as 
the testimony of Christ, and of the Holy Gfhost. 

And why ? Because Christ has said, that the gates 
of hell shall never prevail against His Chtirch 7 , and 
that He will be ever with her, and will send her the 
Holy Spirit to guide her into all truth, and to abide 
with her for ever 8 . 

If the New Testament, which the Universal Church 
receives and reads as the "Word of God, is only the 
word of man ; if the Church of God has not been led 
into truth in this vital matter ; if the whole Church 
of Christ has fallen into error in this fundamental 
article concerning the Inspiration of the New Testa- 
ment, on which the fabric of her faith, and hope, and 
charity is built, then — we say it with all reverence — 
Christ's promise to His Church has failed. He has 
not sent the Holy Spirit to lead her into all truth. 

But, Grod forbid, my brethren, that any one should 
imagine this ! 

Christ is the Truth. He is the everlasting Yea 
and Amen 9 . Heaven and earth will pass away, but His 
word ivill not pass away 10 . Therefore His promise of 
presence and guidance to His Church has not failed. 
He speaks to us by her, to whom He has sent His 
Spirit, and He assures us by her voice and practice 
that all the Books of the New Testament, which she 
reads as inspired, were given by the inspiration of 
God. 

7 Matt. xvi. 18. 8 John xiv. 16; xvi. 13. 

9 Rev. iii. 14. Cp. 2 Cor. i. 20. 10 Luke xxi. 33. 



90 Providential course followed by the Church of 
England in this matter. 

YI. Thanks be to Gfod, the Church of England 
was endued with wisdom, at her Reformation in the 
sixteenth century, to build her belief, and her 
peopled belief, in the Inspiration of Holy Scripture, 
on this good foundation. 

1. She did not say, — what some other religious com- 
munities did say at that time l , — that men's belief in 
the Inspiration of Scripture is to rest on their own 
inner illumination, or personal consciousness. She 
did not build her house on such a floating quicksand 
as that. No : she appealed to the public judgment 
and concurrent practice of the Church of Christ 
Universal. In her Sixth Article 2 she says, in words 
worthy to be written in letters of gold in every 
church of the British Empire, " In the name of the 
Holy Scripture we do understand those Canonical 
Books of the Old and New Testament, of whose 
authority was never any doubt in the Church." And 
because she well knew that there are some few portions 
of the New Testament — such as the Second Epistle 
of St. Peter, as already stated — concerning which 
there were some doubts at first in some Churches, but 
which were afterwards universally received, without 
any doubt, by the whole Catholic Church, she wisely 
adds, at the close of the same Article: "All the 
Books of the New Testament, as they are commonly 



1 See above, p. 23. 

2 Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England " as agreed upon 
by the Archbishops and Bishops of both Provinces and the whole 
Clergy, in the Convocation holden at London in the year 1562." 



Calamitous consequences of a different course. 91 

received, we do receive and account them canoni- 
cal." 

She also shows, what those Books are, by her 
Authorized Version of the Bible, and by her Calendar 
of Lessons of Holy Scripture, appointed to be read 
daily throughout the year. 

2. We cannot be too thankful, that the Church of 
our beloved Country was mercifully preserved from 
building on an unsound foundation in this most 
momentous matter. Three centuries have elapsed 
since that Article was published; and every year 
that passes, bears witness to the wisdom with which 
it was framed. 

We have seen,, and now see, that other reli- 
gious Communities — particularly those foreign Pro- 
testant Churches, — which did not build on this found- 
ation, but on the loose and sandy substruction of 
private opinion, or personal feeling, in this great 
question of Inspiration — have been, and are now, 
buffeted and bewildered by the winds and storms of 
Infidelity. They have separated Holy Scripture 
from the Church, which is the appointed Keeper and 
Guardian of Scripture; and therefore they have 
almost forfeited Scripture. There is scarcely any 
portion of the Bible, which has not now been gain- 
said and rejected by some of their most eminent 
Teachers, relying with fond and overweening conceit 
on their own private imaginations ; and dogmatizing 
rashly and recklessly on God's Holy Word, with 



92 The Church is the Candlestick, 

arbitrary wilfulness, proud presumption, fickle caprice, 
and disdainful contempt of authority. They declaim 
loudly against the Roman Papacy, but every one 
among them sets up a private Popedom in his own 
person, and claims spiritual infallibility and supre- 
macy for himself, and lords it over the faith of men. 
This opinionative dictation of crude, ill-digested opi- 
nions has engendered endless strife; this irrational 
abuse of reason, and injudicious perversion of private 
judgment, have brought discredit upon Reason, and 
have been disastrous to Faith. 

3. Blessed be God, the Church of England has 
not been led astray by this fanatical spirit. Blessed 
be God, she has been enabled to discharge faithfully 
the duty of a Church in the public reading of Holy 
Writ. Blessed be God, she reads day by day, through- 
out the year, several chapters of Holy Scripture to the 
People in their mother tongue. Blessed also be God, 
she builds her belief in the Inspiration of Scripture on 
a sound foundation ; she builds it on the testimony 
of Christ, speaking by His Church to the world. 

4. This method of proof has been dictated by 
Christ Himself. No man, He says, when he hath lighted 
a candle, putteth it in a secret place, neither under 
a bushel, but on a Candlestick, that they which come in 
may see the light. And again He said, No man lighteth 
a candle and covereth it with a vessel, or putteth it under 
a bed; but setteth it on a Candlestick, that they which 
enter in may see the light. 



in wMcJi the Candles of Scripture are lighted and set 93 
oy Christ, the Light of the World. 

Christ is the Light of the World 3 . He lighted the 
candles of Holy Scripture, and He has put them into 
the Candlestick of His Church, which is appointed to 
guard and bear the light of Scripture which is 
kindled by Christ. Therefore Christ Himself, in the 
Book of Revelation, describes a Church under the 
figure of a Candlestick *. 

Observe those seven-branched Candlesticks standing 
before the Altar of this Church. They are now dark. 
And why ? Because they have no candles in them. 
Such is a Church without Scripture. It is dark ; a 
Candlestick without light. But put the Candles of 
Scripture into the Candlestick of the Church, and 
all will see the light. 

Again, if you light the candles, but put them into 
the vault or crypt 5 ; or if you strew them on the 
ground, the candles are of little use ; they soon go 
out. So, if you bury the Bible in the crypt and 
vault of a dead language, it is of little use. If you 
hide it from the people, it is of little use. Or if you 
smother it with the bushel of secular business, or put 
it beneath the bed of carnal indulgence, it is of little 
use. 

Or if, on the other hand, you scatter Bibles about 

3 John viii. 12 ; ix. 5. 

4 Ai»x"ia — properly a lamp-stand ; a term even more significant of this 
office of the Church, than the English word candlestick : for the Lamp 
is fed with oil, which is an appropriate emblem of Holy Scripture, 
bestowed by the Holy Spirit, the Giver of Divine unction and grace, 
illuminating the world. See Rev. i. 11 — 13. 

5 ttpv-KT-qv, the true reading in the text, Luke xi. 33. 



94 They who separate the Bible from the Church, 

at random, and do not put them into the Candle- 
stick of the Church, they will be puffed and blown 
about with every wind of doctrine, and will flare and 
smoke, and soon go out. 

You must have the Candles, and you must have 
the Candlestick ; and you must put the Candles into 
the Candlestick, and they will give light to all. 

Christ has lighted the Candles of Holy Scripture, 
and He has set them in the Candlestick of His 
Church. Let us not separate the Candles from the 
Candlestick, lest we derive no profit from either. 
Let us not sever the Bible from the Church, lest we 
lose both. 

5. Look up to heaven. Behold Christ. He is the 
true Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the 
world 6 . He enlightened Moses, He enlightened the 
Prophets before His Incarnation, He enlightened 
the Apostles and Evangelists after His Incarnation. 
He sent the Holy Grhost to teach them all things, and 
to guide them into all truth, and to bring to their 
remembrance whatsoever He had said unto them, and to 
fill up the light of the Holy Scriptures which are able 
to make us tvise unto salvation through faith in Him 1 . 

Christ, the Everlasting Word, is the Author and 
Giver of the written Word 8 . 

6. Further, Christ is the Truth. He is the Way, 

6 John i. 9. 7 2 Tim. ill. 15. 

8 S. Augustine de Consens. Evangel, lib. i. cap. ult. well says, " Qui 
Prophetas ante Suam descensionem misit, Ipse et Apostolos post Suam 
ascensionem misit . . . quicquid Ille de Suis factis et dictis nos legere 
voluit, hoc scribendum illis tanquam Suis manibus imperavit." 






are in peril of losing loth the Bible and the Church. 95 

the Truth, and the Life 9 . He is the faithful and true 
Witness 1 . He not only gave the Scriptures, but He 
bears testimony to their Inspiration. When He 
came down from Heaven and took our flesh, He 
acknowledged all the Books of the Old Testament to 
be given by Inspiration of God. And after His 
ascension into heaven, He established His Church, 
and sent His Holy Spirit to be for ever with her ; and 
He speaks in her, and by her, and He declares by 
her voice and practice, that the Scriptures of the 
New Testament, no less than the Old, are the Word 
of the Living God. 

VII. Lastly, Christ gives the Holy Spirit to all 
those who seek for Him aright. He punishes un- 
godly men with spiritual blindness, so that they 
cannot see the light blazing forth in Holy Scripture. 
He chastises those who lead unholy lives ; who would 
quench the light of Scripture, if they could, for it 
speaks to them of a Judgment to come. He allows 
them to close their eyes, and leaves them to themselves. 
Infidelity is the punishment which evil men inflict 
on themselves by their sins. Every one that doeth 
evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his 
deeds should be reproved 2 . Nor is it only carnal 
indulgence, or worldliness, which produce spiritual 
blindness. Spiritual blindness often co- exists with 
great mental endowments. It is engendered by in- 
tellectual pride. God hides Himself from the wise 

9 John xiv. 6. 2 Rev. iii. 14. 2 John iii. 20. 



96 Moral requisites for receiving the Bible. 

and prudent , but revealeth Himself unto babes 3 . He re- 
sisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble*. 
The angels of Christ's little ones see the face of God s . 
We must become as little children, if we would be- 
hold Him, and see the wondrous things of His Law 6 . 
In order that the mind may be clear, the heart 
must be clean. We must seek for the truth not by 
wrangling disputations, but by loving thoughts and 
words and deeds, by lowly reverence on our knees. 
We must seek it by holiness of life. If any man 
does God's will, He will make him knoiv of the doctrine ' . 
If any man love God, the same is known of GoU % , and 
is loved of God, and God reveals Himself to him. 
Mysteries are revealed unto the meek 9 . Them that are 
meek shall He guide in judgment ; and such as are gentle, 
them shall He learn His way 1 . 

Is this temper yours ? Are these dispositions 
yours? Then, God knows, you will be enchanted 
and enraptured with the beauty and loveliness of 
Holy Scripture; you will be transported with holy 
ecstasy in hearing and reading it. It will sound in 
your ears like heavenly music, chanted by the quires 
of the Seraphim. By the aid of the Holy Spirit 
shed abroad in your hearts, in answer to your prayers, 
you will see the work of the Spirit in the Bible. 
You will say, Lord, how I love Thy Law, all the day 

3 Luke x. 21. 4 James iv. 6. 1 Pet. v. 5. 

5 Matt, xviii. 10. 6 Ps. cxix. 18. 

7 John vii. 17. 8 1 Cor. viii. 3. 

9 Ecclus. iii. 19. 1 Ps. xxv. 8. . 



'External evidence confirmed by internal. 97 

long is my study in it. I rejoice at Thy Word as one 
that findeth great spoil 2 . Thy testimonies are my de- 
light and my counsellors 3 . More to be desired are they 
than gold, yea, than much fine gold, sweeter also than 
honey and the honeycomb 4 . You will never be weary 
of admiring the harmonious symmetry of all the 
parts of the Bible, the unsullied holiness of its pre- 
cepts, the exact fulfilment of its prophecies, the 
tender graciousness of its promises, the marvellous 
glory of its revelations, displaying Christ the Sun of 
Righteousness, illumining our dark nature with the 
brilliant splendour of His light, and dwelling therein 
with the Shechinah of His Presence, and pouring 
upon it the riches of His grace, and preparing it for 
the everlasting fruition of heavenly bliss. You will 
never be tired of meditating on the wonderful adapt- 
ation of the Scriptures to our nature and our needs, 
to our cares and our sorrows, to our fears and our 
hopes, to our temptations and our trials; you will 
never be satiated in contemplating the manifold 
blessings which have been produced by the Holy 
Scriptures in human hearts, and in human house- 
holds, and in cities, kingdoms, and nations, wherever 
the Scriptures have been duly received, loved, and 
obeyed. 

Thus you will be confirmed, settled, and immoveably 
established in your belief, which Christ, speaking in 
His Church, solemnly testifies to be true, that all 

2 Ps. cxix. 162. 3 Ps. cxix. 24. 97. 

4 Ps. xix. 10. 



98 Anticipations of a future state. 

Scripture is given by Inspiration of God $ . And you 
may humbly believe and devoutly hope, that, if you 
have profited aright by its Bevelations upon earth, it 
will be your employment and joy, in a future, eternal, 
state of existence, to have a fuller insight into those 
Mysteries, of which the Scriptures speak, and which 
Angels desire to look into 6 ; and to have an ever- 
lasting vision in heaven, of the manifold wisdom of 
God. 

5 2Tim.'iii. 16. 6 1 Pet. i. 12. 



LECTURE V. 



2 Timothy iii. 16, 17. 

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for 
doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness : 
that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all 
good works. 

I. Be ready always to give an answer to every man that 
asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you. This is 
the precept of St. Peter \ The hope that is in us, is 
grounded on a belief that the Bible is the "Word of 
God ; and the Apostle may therefore be understood 
to require us to be ready always to render to others 
an account of the reasons which constrain us, and 
ought to persuade them, to receive the Bible as God's 
Holy Word. 

1. This being the case, we have in a previous dis- 
course 2 declared ourselves unable to agree with those, 
who rest their belief in the Inspiration of the Bible 
on their own personal assurance of its Inspiration. 
Such an assurance, however satisfactory to them- 

1 1 Pet. iii. 15. 2 See above, pp. 20—27- 

F 2 



100 'Recapitulation. 

selves, can have no influence with other men ; it will 
never bring the unbeliever to acknowledge the Bible 
to be from Gfod. 

2. Besides, the history of the last three centuries, 
and especially of our own age, has displayed the dis- 
astrous consequences of such a method of dealing 
with this great question of Inspiration. 

The appeal to private feelings and assurances was 
first employed in defence of the Bible; but it has 
now been turned against it; and they who rely on 
private feelings and personal assurances, as their 
ground for believing the Bible, cannot make any 
effectual reply to those who appeal to their own 
private feelings and personal assurances as their 
reason for rejecting it. 

The dogmas of Private Judgment have produced 
the doubts of Infidelity. The advantages which 
have been given to Scepticism by that appeal to per- 
sonal feelings and private opinions, and the baneful 
fruits which it is now bringing forth in our own 
land, warn us to consider well our first principles. 

3. We need something much more sound, solid, and 
stable, than our own consciousness, to refute the 
assaults of Unbelief, and to sustain our own faith and 
that of others in the divine Inspiration of the Bible ; 
and also, if God so will, to bring the sceptic and un- 
believer to acknowledge, that all Scripture is given by 
Inspiration of God. 

4. It has been my endeavour to do something, 
with Gfod's help, in this great work of building up 



Recapitulation. 101 

but old waste places, and raising up the foundations of 
many generations 3 and repairing the breach that has 
been made by some, who ought themselves to be 
builders; and with this aim and purpose, the Dis- 
courses have been delivered on this subject which 
have been lately addressed to you in this place. 

Reasonable men require sound reasons for what 
they do ; and their assent to any proposition is pro- 
portioned to the reasons given in support of it ; and 
the influence, which any proposition exercises on 
their conduct, is also proportioned to the conviction 
produced by those reasons in their minds. 

II. "What, then, are our reasons for belief in the 
Inspiration of Holy Scripture ? 

1. Our answer to this question, as you may re- 
member, was : "We have the authority of God Him- 
self, declared to us in the uniform consent and prac- 
tice of His own People, acknowledging the Old Tes- 
tament to be His Word. We have that acknowledg- 
ment authorized and confirmed by the Son of Gfocl, 
when He came down from heaven and dwelt among 
us. And for our belief in the Inspiration of the 
New Testament as well as of the Old, we have Christ's 
testimony, speaking to us in the Church Universal, 
to which He has promised His presence and Spirit 
even to the end. 

2. The peculiar value of this testimony to the In- 
spiration of Holy Scripture is its comprehensive- 
ness and universality. Other arguments apply with 

3 Isa. lviii. 12. 
F 3 



102 The previous proof of the Inspiration of the Bible 

greater or less force to portions of Holy Writ. But 
this testimony extends to the whole Bible. It covers 
the whole with a divine panoply. It authenticates 
the whole as the Inspired Word of God ; it proves, 
that all Scripture — every part of Scripture — is given by 
Inspiration of God. 

III. To this point in the argument we had arrived 
in the last discourse. 

Let us now proceed to observe, that the strength 
of this general testimony to the Inspiration of Holy 
Scripture is corroborated by other subsequent con- 
siderations, which accrue with cumulative force, and 
settle and stablish us more firmly in the belief, that 
the Scriptures are the Word of God. 

IV. What, then, are these considerations ? 
This will be the subject of our present inquiry. 

1. First, then, we are confirmed in our belief of 
the Inspiration of the Bible by observing the evi- 
dences of a providential design carried on during many 
ages in succession, for protecting the Bible, and for 
assuring us that Holy Scripture is God's Word. 

If the Bible were not His Word, it would be no- 
thing else than a forgery put forth in His name. 
For, it professes to deliver a message from God, and 
to give revelations of His nature and attributes, and 
to unfold the hidden mysteries of the spiritual world. 

If, therefore, the Bible is not from God, it is a 
counterfeit coin, bearing His impress : it is a profane 
outrage against Him, and a fraudulent imposture 
upon mankind. Consequently it would be viewed 



is confirmed oy the evidence of God's providential 103 
care of the Bible. 

with indignation by Him Who is a God of justice 
and truth. 

But look back upon the past. Ever since the 
Bible was written, Almighty God has continued to 
protect it. He has never ceased to acknowledge it 
as His own. When the first books of the Bible — 
namely, the Books of Moses — were written, He re- 
ceived them under His divine guardianship in the 
Holy of Holies *. In critical times, He has ever in- 
terfered to save it. When the Old Testament was 
in peril of being lost, through the corruption and 
idolatry of Princes, Priests, and People, He brought 
forth the original volume of the Law from its sacred 
retreat in the days of good King Josiah, who in his 
own name, and in that of his people, proclaimed it 
to be the Word of God 5 . 

The subsequent dispersion of the Jews for their 
sins was made ministerial, as we have seen 6 , to the 
preservation and dissemination of God's Holy Word 
in almost all countries, where Synagogues were 
erected by the Jews, in which the Old Testament 
was publicly read every Sabbath day. 

Afterwards, in an evil time, Antiochus Epiphanes 
the King of Syria arose, and set up the abomination 
of desolation in the Temple of God at Jerusalem; 
and endeavoured to compel the Jews to worship the 
gods of the Heathen ; and sent forth his own soldiers 
to destroy the copies of the Old Testament, who rent 

4 See above, p. 44. 5 See above, p. 45. 

c See above, pp. 35—39. 

F 4 



104 God's providential care of the Bible confirms the 
belief of its divine origin. 

in pieces the Books of the Law which they found, and 
burnt them with fire; and whosoever was found with any 
such Book was put to death by the king's command 7 . 

In that critical juncture Almighty Gfod interposed 
to rescue His own Word, and the persecuting King 
was suddenly cut off by a miserable death 8 . 

About a century and a half passed away, and the 
Son of God came down from heaven. At that time 
the Word of God was publicly read by the Jews in 
the Synagogues of Palestine, and in almost every city 
of the civilized world. But its sense was overlaid 
and obscured by human traditions. The Son of Grod 
acknowledged the Old Testament in the hands of the 
Jews. He owned it to be God's Word. He showed 
His zeal for it by sternly rebuking the Pharisees for 
making it of none effect by their tradition 9 . But He 
never rebuked them for receiving it as God's Word. 
No : on the contrary, He joined with them in the 
service of their Synagogues, and in reading and 
expounding the Old Testament as God's Word 1 . 
And His Apostles, and His Church after them, being 
taught by the Son of God, received the Old Testa- 
ment as inspired by God ; and commanded all men 
to receive it as such. 

At the beginning of the fourth century after Christ, 
a fierce persecution arose against His Church. The 
Emperor of the Roman World, Diocletian, endea- 

1 1 Mac. i. 54, 55—57. 

s 1 Mac. vi. 12, 13. 16. 2 Mac. ix. 11—18. 28. 

9 Matt. xv. 3. 6. 1 See above, pp. 60— 65. 



History of the Bible in England. 105 

voured to destroy the Bible. He ordered diligent 
search to be made in all parts of the Empire for 
copies of the New Testament 2 , and commanded them 
to be burnt. But God again interfered to save it. 
The sacred Bush loas burning, but it was not consumed, 
and God's voice came forth from the midst of it a . 
In a few years afterwards, He raised up another 
Sovereign of the Roman World, Constantine, the 
first Emperor who embraced Christianity ; and by his 
royal command copies of the Holy Scriptures were 
multiplied, and Churches were built, in which those 
Scriptures were read, as the inspired "Word of God. 

A thousand years passed away. Then was an 
evil time for Holy Scripture. The Bible was not 
dead ; but it was buried. It was entombed in the 
sepulchre of a dead language. Not to speak of other 
lands, but only of our own, not a single copy of the 
Bible existed at that time in England in our tongue. 
But then arose John Wickliffe. Five hundred years 
ago, he translated the Bible into English *. In that 
age copies of the Bible could only be had in manu- 
script ; and four and twenty years after his death it 
was decreed 5 by some in high place among us, that 
"no one should hereafter translate any text into 
English, and that no book of this kind should be read 
that was composed by John "Wickliffe/' 

2 Euseb. H. E. viii. 2. 3 Exod. iii. 2. 4. 

4 See Lewis, History of the English Translations of the Bible, p. 
18—27. Lond. 1739. 

5 By Archbishop Arundel, in a Constitution at Oxford, 1408. 

F 5 



106 History of the Bible in England. 

Such, was then the famine of hearing God's Word 8 in 
England. 

But in fifty years' time, the art of Printing was 
invented, and "William Caxton set up his press at 
Westminster 7 . And about the year 1526 William 
Tyndal made and published in London his Translation 
of the Bible — the first Translation that ever was 
printed in this land. The Author of this Translation, 
and his coadjutor John Frith, died nobly as Martyrs 
for the Faith ; and the light which they kindled has 
never been put out. Two centuries and a half after 
the first Translation of the Bible into English by 
Wickliffe, and just two centuries and a half ago, — that 
is, in the year of our Lord 1611, — our own Authorized 
Yersion was published. That noble Translation was 
made by a goodly company of pious and learned men, 
at the head of whom stood a Dean of Westminster 8 ; 
and by Grod's blessing on their labours, and on those 
of others in this and other lands, especially our reli- 
gious Societies, the Holy Scriptures are now diffused 
every where. Their sound is gone out into all lands, 
and their loords into the ends of the world 9 . This is the 
Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes 1 . 

Surely these events, extending over a range of 
more than three thousand years, afford practical 
attestation from Gfod Himself, that the Bible is His 



6 Amos viii. 11. 7 a.d. 1474. 

3 Dean — afterwards Bishop— Andrewes. See Lewis's History of the 
Translations of the Bible, p. 308. 

Ps. xix. 4. : Ps. cxviii. 23. 



The fulfilment of the Prophecies of Scripture confirms 107 
the belief in its Inspiration. 

"Word. Surely they may inspire us with the cheering 

assurance, that, however Satan may assail it, God 

will protect it unto the end. 

2. Another evidence of the Inspiration of Holy 
Scripture is seen in the fulfilment of the Prophecies, 
which are contained therein. God, and God alone, 
can foresee the future. He challenges false gods by 
saying, " Shoiv us what shall happen, declare us things 
for to come 2 ." 

Let this test be applied to the Books of the Old 
Testament. 

Can any other writings in the world be named, 
composed at such different times, in such different 
places, and by the instrumentality of such different 
persons, as the Books of the Old Testament; and 
delivering such a long series of Prophecies, as those, 
for instance, which concern the Messiah, and begin 
with the Book of Genesis, and end with that of 
Malachi ; can any other writings be named, contain- 
ing Prophecies so minute, so various, and seemingly 
so contradictory — as, for example, those which pre- 
announce a Messiah, suffering the most shameful 
and agonizing pain, and yet triumphing as a mighty 
Conqueror, and reigning as a glorious King — and all 
punctually fulfilled, fulfilled by the agency of that 
very people — the Jews — who had those prophecies 
in their hands, and who read those prophecies every 
Sabbath Bay in their Synagogues ; and yet, as St. 

2 Isa. xli. 22. 

p 6 



108 The harmony of the various parts of the Bible 
confirms the proof of its Inspiration. 

Paul says, fulfilled them in condemning Sim, of whom 
those Prophecies speak ? 

Here, then, is another proof that the Books of the 
Old Testament are animated by the breath of Grod. 

3. Consider also the wonderful symmetry of the 
various parts of the Bible. 

Its subject-matter reaches from the Creation to 
the End of time. Its Books were written by different 
persons in distant ages and countries. And yet 
how marvellously do they harmonize together. 
They are like Christ's vesture, woven without seam 3 '. 
They are like the wings of the Cherubim, as de- 
scribed by Ezekiel, intertwined and interlaced 
together 4 . The Jewish Doctors said that the words 
of the Pentateuch make one word; and there is a 
spiritual truth in the saying. The Books of the 
Bible are all fitted together. The Law prepares the 
way for the Prophets, and the Prophets proclaim the 
sanctity of the Law. The New Testament lies hid 
in the Old Testament, and the Old Testament is 
opened in the New. All the Books of the Bible are 
joined together, and form one Book. 

No human design could have produced such a 
result as this. It is the work of Him who sees all 
things at a glance to the end from the beginning 5 , 
and with "Whom one day is as a thousand years, and a 
thousand years as one day 6 . 

Here is another evidence that the Bible is from Him. 

3 John xix. 23. 4 Ezek. L 9. 11, 12. 

5 Isa. xlvi. 10. 6 2 Pet. iii. 8. 



The weakness of the instruments used in writing the 109 
JBible, and the work done thereby, prove its divine origin. 

4. Let us also reflect what hind of persons they 
were, who were employed to write the Bible. 

The Bible, particularly the New Testament, pro- 
fesses to unfold things hidden from the foundation of 
the world 7 . The Gospels claim to be records of the 
sayings of the Son of God, revealing the abstruse 
Mysteries of His heavenly Kingdom. And who were 
the persons chosen to write these marvels? Their 
enemies justly said that they were unlearned and 
ignorant men 8 . True : such they were in themselves, 
Publicans and Fishermen of Galilee. Yet these 
unlearned and ignorant men have become the Teachers 
of the World. They are the Historians of the 
greatest deeds that ever were done ; they are the 
Chroniclers of the wisest sayings that were ever 
uttered ; they are the reporters of the most heavenly 
Sermons that were ever preached. And the World 
has received their words, — has received them as 
divine. The Gospels are read every where. God evan- 
gelized the learned and wise by means of the simple 
and foolish ; and not the simple and foolish by 
means of the learned and wise. As S. Augustine 
says, " He caught the Orator by the Fisherman 9 ; 
and not the Fisherman by the Orator." 

The greatest sages of this world — the Bacons and 
-Newtons, the Keplers and Pascals— sit down as 



1 Matt. xiii. 35. 8 Acts iv. 13. 

9 Piscatorem de Oratore non lucratus est Christus, sed Oratorem de 
Piscatore. S. Augustine, de Utilitate Jejunii ix., and Serm. xliii. and 
lxxxvii., and in Ps. cxlix. 



110 The beneficial effects produced by the Bible, in 
nations ant 



little children at the feet of St. Matthew and St. 
John. 

How could this be done ? 

Certainly not by the writers themselves. Of them- 
selves they could do nothing. Their sufficiency was of 
God \ According to His promise, Christ sent them 
the Holy Ghost, to lead them into all truth, and to bring 
all things to their remembrance, whatsoever He had said 
to them. 

He chose weak instruments for this mighty work of 
evangelizing the world, in order that by the weak- 
ness of the instruments chosen, and by the greatness of 
the work done through their instrumentality, it might 
be evident to all, that the work was not of them, but 
of Gfod. The treasure of heavenly truth was com- 
mitted to earthen vessels, in order that the excellency 
of the power of the Gospel might be seen to be of God, 
and not of men 2 . 

5. Let us reflect also on the beneficent effects pro- 
duced by the Bible on the world. 

Here is another proof that the Scriptures are from 
Him. The Bible speaks in God's name, and pro- 
fesses to be God's Word. And if it is not in fact, 
what in name it professes to be, then there is no 
other alternative, it is not from God, but from the 
Evil One. Every plant which My Heavenly Father 
hath not planted, shall be rooted up, says Christ 3 . And, 
A Tree is known by its fruits 4 . 

1 2 Cor. iii. 5. 2 2 Cor. iv. 7- 

3 Matt. xv. 13. i Matt. vii. 16; xii. 33. Luke vi. 43. 



prove the Bille to be of God. Ill 

What, then, have been the fruits of the Bible ? 

Do they not show that the tree is a good tree, 
that it is a tree of life, and that its leaves are for the 
healing of the Nations 5 . 

This is the fact on which St. Paul insists, when he 
says that All Scripture, or rather every Scripture 6 , 
being divinely inspired, or inbreathed by God, is also 7 
profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for 
instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may 
be perfect, throughly furnished unto every good work. 
What is the condition of men without it ? and what is 
their condition, wherever they receive and obey it ? 

The Bible, and the Bible alone, makes subjects 
loyal to their Sovereigns, because it teaches them 
that, in obeying their Sovereign, they are obeying 
God, and will be rewarded hereafter by Him 8 . The 
Bible, and the Bible alone, makes Sovereigns rule 
rightly, because it reminds them that they must 
render a strict account of their rule to the King of 
kings. The Bible makes Judges and Magistrates 
judge just judgment, because it tells them, that they 
must one day stand before the Judgment-Seat of 
Christ. The Bible makes Masters kind to their 
Servants, because it declares to all Masters, that they 
have a Master in heaven \ The Bible makes Servants 
faithful to their Masters, because it assures all Ser- 

5 Rev. xxii. 2. 

6 iracra ypa<p^j : " Every portion of the Holy Book is inspired, and 
forms a living portion of a living organic whole." 

7 Kai ; this is probably the true reading of the text. 

8 Rom. xiii. 1—3. 1 Eph. vi. 9. Col. iv. 1. 



112 Beneficial effects 'produced by the Bible, in 
nations and families, 

vants that they are Christ's freemen, and will receive 
a reward for dutiful service, at the Great Day 2 . The 
Bible persuades busy men to forego their business, 
and makes tender women forget their tenderness, 
and visit Prisons and Hospitals, and minister at the 
bedside of the sick, and watch over the dying; 
because they know, that what they do to the least of 
Christ's brethren on earth, they do it unto Him, and 
that He will requite them for it at the Great Day 3 . 
The Bible, and the Bible alone, unlocks the fetters of 
the slave, and makes all men brethren in Christ 4 . The 
Bible sends forth the Missionary to heathen lands, to 
loose the chains of the soul. The Bible, and the 
Bible alone, operates on the mainspring of human 
actions, — the heart. The Bible makes men honest and 
just, kind and charitable in their thoughts and speeches, 
as well as in their acts, because it teaches them, that 
all things are naked and open to the eyes of Sim with 
Whom they have to do 5 , and that He will bring to 
light the hidden things of darkness, and make manifest 
the counsels of the hearts 6 . The Bible makes Hus- 
bands and Wives faithful and loving to each other, 
because it teaches, that Marriage was instituted by 
God in Paradise, and that it represents the spiritual 
union and wedlock between Christ and His Church, 
and that whoever dishonours Marriage desecrates a 
great Mystery 7 . The Bible makes young men and 

2 Eph. vi. 5. Col. Hi. 22. Titus ii. 9. 1 Pet. ii. 18. 22. 

3 Matt. xxv. 40. 4 Phil. 16. 

s Heb. iv. 13. 6 1 Cor. iv. 5. 

i Eph. v. 22—32. 



prove the Bible to he of God. 113 

young women to live pure, chaste, and holy lives, 
because it teaches them that their bodies are temples 
of the Holy Ghost, and that whosoever defiles the 
Temple of God, him loill God destroy 8 , and that their 
bodies are members of Christ, and are to be held in 
honour as such 9 ; and that their bodies will be 
raised again from the grave, and that they must 
then give an account of the things done in the body \ 
and that, if they have presented their bodies a living 
sacrifice to God upon earth 2 , in holiness and pureness 
of living, their bodies will rise from the grave, and 
ive hereafter in heaven, in everlasting health and 
angelic beauty, and be made like unto Christ's glorious 
body, according to the mighty working whereby He is 
able to subdue all things unto Himself*. 

What shall we say more ? The Bible is the fountain 
of all true Patriotism and Loyalty in States ; it is the 
source of all true wisdom, sound policy, and equity in 
Senates, Council-chambers, and Courts of Justice ; 
it is the spring of all true discipline and obedience, 
and of all valour and chivalry in Armies and Fleets, 
on the battle-field, and on the wide sea. It is the 
origin of all probity and integrity in Commerce and in 
Trade, in Marts and in Shops, in Banking-houses 
and Exchanges ; in the public resorts of men, and in 
the secret silence of the heart. It is the pure 
unsullied fountain of all love and peace, happiness, 

8 1 Cor. iii. 16, 17; vi. 19. 9 1 Cor. vi. 15. 1 Thess. iv. 4. 

1 Rom. ii. 6 ; xiv. 12. 2 Cor. v. 10. a Rom. xii. 1. 

3 Phil. iii. 21. 



114 Testimony of the English, Nation to the sanctity of 
the Bible, at the Coronation of its Sovereigns. 

quietness, and joy, in families and households. 
"Wherever it is duly obeyed, it makes the desert of 
the "World to rejoice mid blossom as the rose i . 

These are the fruits of the Bible. Surely we may 
conclude from them, that the Tree which bears them 
has been planted by the hand of God, and is watered 
by the dews and showers of His Spirit, and is 
warmed by the sunshine of His grace ; — that it is 
God's Tree, and will nourish for evermore. 

V. Finally, let us look around. The place in 
which we now are, is full of instruction. In this 
ancient Minster, Kings and Queens are crowned : 
and at their Coronation, that Sacred Yolume, the 
Holy Bible, is taken from that Altar; and that 
Blessed Book is placed in the Monarch's hands, with 
these solemn words, uttered by the public Voice of 
the English Church and Nation, at that august cere- 
monial 5 : — 

" Our Gracious Sovereign ! we present you with 
this Book, the most valuable thing that this world 
affords. Here is "Wisdom ; this is the Royal Law ; 
these are the lively Oracles of God. Blessed is he 
that readeth, and they that keep the Words of this 
Book ; that keep and do the things contained in it. 
For these are the words of eternal Life, able to make 
you wise and happy in this world, nay, wise unto 
salvation ; and so, happy for evermore, through faith 

4 Isa. xxxv. 1. 

5 See the Form and Order of Coronation of the Kings and Queens of 
Great Britain and Ireland, in the Abbey Church of St. Peter, West- 
minster. 



Proofs of the divine power of the JBihle at the hour 115 
of Death. 

which is in Christ Jesus ; to whom be glory for ever. 
Amen." 

Again look around. We are assembled here to-day 
on the eye of a funeral — the funeral of the venerated 
Mother of our beloved Queen. Meditations on royal 
deaths, and on royal funerals, find a proper place 
here. For here Kings and Queens rest in their 
graves. Here Princes and Nobles sleep in the dust. 
Here lie Statesmen and Orators, Legislators and 
Judges, Philosophers, Poets, and Historians, Captains 
and Conquerors. 

Now consider this. 

At their last hour, when the shadows of death 
were falling upon them, when the heart was beating 
feebly and faintly, and the hand could hardly prop 
the drooping head, when the eyes were beginning to 
be bedimmed with the cloud and mist of mortality, 
where, then, was their stay and support? At 
that awful hour, did the Sovereign find any solid 
comfort in meditating on the vast extent of his 
dominions, or on the long duration of his reign? 
Did the Princes and Nobles, who here lie buried, 
derive any genuine consolation from the splendour 
of their stately mansions, or the beauty of their wide 
demesnes, or from their patrician badges and titles, 
and the long line of their ancestral dignities ? No : 
at that solemn hour, all these were vanishing like 
a dream. Did the Statesman obtain any comfortable 
assurance from his political sagacity, or the Orator 
from his brilliant eloquence ? No : these things were 



116 Proofs of the divine power of the Bible, as contrasted 
with all human aids, 

like fading flowers. Did the Legislator or the Judge 
find any assistance in their Codes and Law Books ? 
No : they themselves were summoned to Judgment. 
Could the Philosopher solace himself with musing on 
his Problems and Theories, or the Poet with the 
remembrance of his songs ? No : these ivere like a 
tale that is told 6 . Could the Historian procure peace 
for his soul from his records of past ages ? No : he 
himself was passing away. Could the seafaring 
Captain obtain a spiritual calm from his long voyages 
to distant climes ? No : he must now take another 
voyage to an unexplored region, where no earthly 
chart or compass would guide him. He must now set 
sail for Eternity. Did the Gfeneral or Admiral, — 
the heroes of many battles, — gather hope and joy for 
themselves from their laurels gained in the conflicts 
of war ? No : they must prepare now for a sharper 
struggle with Spiritual Powers, against which the 
Artillery of this World would be of no avail. But, 
had they, then, no comfort in that hour of Death ? 
Miserable, miserable indeed, if such was then the 
case. Had they no comfort? And if they had, 
where was it ? It was in the Bible. If they had 
believed its doctrines, and had obeyed its precepts, 
and if they had trusted in its promises, if they had 
lived and fed on it as living bread from heaven, then 
there was hope in their end. Then there was peace 
in their death, through the might and mercy of Him 
who died for them, and was buried, and over- 
6 Ps. xc. 9. 



at the hour of Death, and in the prospect of Eternity. 117 

came, and rose again, and opened the kingdom 
of heaven to all believers. Then, though they 
walked through the valley and shadow of death, they 
feared no evil, for He was with them 1 . Then they 
fell asleep in peace, and in hope to awake with 
joy. Then Death to them was Birth, — Birth to 
endless life. Then they felt, in their inmost hearts, 
that belief in the Inspiration of the Bible — a belief 
based on the soundest reason — is able to speak com- 
fort to the soul. Then they realized its power. 
Then it proved its virtue. Then they knew that 
whatsoever had been written aforetime had been icritten 
for their learning, that they through patience and 
comfort of the Scriptures might have hope 8 . Then they 
found, by personal experience, that a few verses of 
the Bible, heard with the ear of faith, are of more 
worth than crowns and coronets; that they are of 
more value than all the wealth and grandeur, all the 
mansions and estates, all the eloquence and wisdom, 
all the genius and science, all the triumphs and 
trophies, of this world. Then they drank a refresh- 
ing stream of heavenly peace and joy from such 
blessed words as these, i" am the Resurrection, and 
the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in Me, 
though he were dead, yet shall he live : and he that Uveth 
and believeth in Me shall never die 9 . Verily, verily, I 
say unto you, He that heareth My word, and believeth on 
Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not 
come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto 

1 Ps. xxiii. 4. 8 Rom. xv. 4. 9 John xi. 25, 26*. 



118 The Bay of Judgment will prove the truth of the 
Bible. 

life \ Then they were able to say, Death, where 

is thy sting ? Grave, where is thy Victory ? Thanks 

be to God who giveth us the Victory through our Lord 

Jesus Christ 2 . Then there was divine music for 

them in those heavenly words, I heard a voice from 

heaven, saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead 

which die in the Lord : even so, saith the Spirit, for they 

rest from their labours 3 . 

Brethren, may this support be yours, in your last 

hour ! It will be yours, be sure, if you live and die 

in the belief, that all Scripture is given by inspiration 

of God. And hereafter, at the great and dreadful 

Day, when the Elements shall melt with fervent heat 4 , 

and when the Yolume of this visible Creation will no 

more be legible; when all the fair characters now 

written in earth and sky upon the pages of the 

Book of Nature, will be effaced and obliterated, and 

the heavens themselves will depart as a scroll 5 , — then 

the Word of Gfod will remain unchanged ; its letters 

will be indelible, they will endure for ever 6 . Heaven 

and earth shall pass away, says Christ, but My Words 

shall not pass away 7 . Blessed, therefore, is he that 

heareth and keepeth the sayings of that Book 8 , blessed 

indeed is he — blessed for evermore ! 

1 John v. 24. 2 1 Cor. xv. 55. 

3 Rev. xiv. 13. * 2 Pet. iii. 10. 

5 Isa. xxxiv. 4. Rev. vi. 14. 6 1 Pet. i. 25. 

7 Matt. xxiv. 35. 8 Rev. i. 3 ; xxii. 7. 

THE END. 

GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, PRINTERS, ST. JOHN'S SQUARE, LONDON. 



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